As Eskom continues to encourage South Africans to register their solar photovoltaic (PV) systems with R10 000 in assistance, an industry commentator says it is meeting mass resistance.
The power utility is informing people that all systems under 100 kilovolt-amperes (kVA) must be registered with either Eskom or municipalities and comply with grid code requirements in terms of the Electricity Regulation Act.
To encourage registration, Eskom has extended its “Solar PV registration legal compliance campaign update” until the end of March. Failure to log these units with it brings with it the threat of disconnection.
As a sweetener, the power utility has extended its offer of up to R10 000 in assistance to cover registration and connection fees as well as a free smart meter.
Independent energy expert Chris Yelland notes that there are about 40 000 unregistered residential installations on Eskom’s grid, with a likely similar number on municipal structures. However, he says that fewer than 10% of affected households or small businesses have registered or are likely to do so by the end of March because the requirement is seen as needlessly costly.
Eskom says most residential systems are under 50kVA. A 50kVA system is typically sufficient to power a farmhouse with pumps and refrigeration, or a small office park unit, with enough capacity to run multiple appliances at the same time.
“People are resisting. And, you know, if the public resists, as in e-tolls, the whole system will collapse,” says Yelland. “Only a very small percentage has actually registered and are likely to register by the end of March,” he adds.
Legal validity
Yelland adds that several organisations are challenging whether Eskom has the legal authority to force registration of pre-existing and future solar PV installations that are wired into a distribution board – what industry calls “behind the meter”.
Solar PV makes up about two-thirds of installed power capacity in the private sector according to the South African Photovoltaic Industry Association.
“It is our view that they are acting beyond their legal authority and threatening customers to disconnect them for failing to register an installation. We don’t think they have the legal authority to impose this sort of thing on installations connected behind the meter on numerous premises,” says Yelland.
AfriForum has also taken Eskom to task over whether the utility has the power to enforce the mandatory registration of small-scale embedded generation, which generate less than 100 kW of real power – equivalent to about 125kVA in capacity.
The non-profit civil rights organisation says that imposing fines on people who do not register their systems by the end of March is a “threat… without any legal validity, as Eskom has not yet been able to indicate a single regulation that authorises it to impose such fines”.
Morné Mostert, manager for local government affairs at AfriForum, says it is opposed to the fact that “consumers are forced to comply with non-existent regulations at enormous cost and without any clear legal framework”.
Eskom was not immediately available to provide comment.
On its website, Eskom says that, in accordance with the National Energy Regulator of South Africa regulations, businesses and households with embedded generation systems of less than 100kVA (including solar PV systems) are required to register with Eskom, even if they do not export power to the grid.
Fully off grid systems do not need to register if they operate independently from Eskom’s supply.
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