First time seeing these SMS's coming through and we are at that point now where you may as well go off the grid. Your monthly electricty payments would be similar to paying off your own solar installation and over time will be far cheaper.
Act now, stay legal is the name of the campaign being used by the SOE electricity supplier against those households or businesses with solar installations. They are demanding everyone register their solar installations not only with a COC certificate but also another certificate from someone "qualified" from the Department of Labour. Those that do not comply face disconnection or fines. Maybe by the 1st April they will extend their threats or simply think they are acting legally.
2 certificates for the same installation with the only reason being they can charge extra money for the 2nd certificate. The deadline is the 31st March so good luck with enforcing this as who would be crazy enough to sign up to that type of deal. Forcing home owners or businesses to comply twice for the same installation is pure madness. The current law on any installation being under 100kwh requiring only a COC for lawful proof of safety and compliance. Eskom (SOE) is making up additional laws which is regarded as over reach.
Having a solar system I have been staying up to date and this weekend decided to add a solar geyser/boiler to the shopping list. Generally a hot water boiler will consume anywhere between 30 and 40% of your total electricity consumption. The current set up has the geyser running off our solar and to take away that usage having an independent solar geyser makes a lot of sense.
Where the plan is now changing is I was just going to buy everything myself and it actually makes more sense to add this to the current mortgage/bond. I would prefer to keep my cash reserves and add to the debt on the property for now that is. Priority number one is getting off the grid and leaving behind any chaos and confusion that is taking place.
One does not need a degree to see what is happening here and this is all about screwing over the customers who have added solar reducing their reliance on the grid. The municipalities who are in SA a middleman supplying electricity rely on the heavily marked up electricity charges to turn a profit.
The SOE is corrupt and so are the municipalities with 13 not having paid their bills to the SOE for electricity purchased. The current threat is these municipalities will be cut off meaning so will all the households and businesses in those jurisdictions. We know the municipalities will broker some type of repayment deal at the expense of the consumers through higher tariffs.
Whichever way you look at what is going on getting off the grid is a must do and I am in the process of getting this done. The problem is work has thrown some implications and curved balls of late so my focus has been elsewhere and still is for now. I need to discuss with the bank hopefully this week to organise the finance required and then it should be fairly straightforward. We are going off grid no matter what as there is no other choice and is an investment more about protecting yourself from exorbitant manipulated electricity tariffs .
Madness really when the rest of the world is welcoming renewable green energy and here we are being threatened. People used to joke that the government cannot steal free energy from the sun yet they are trying to find a way of preventing people from reducing their reliance on the grid. The municipalities are very concerned their revenues are going to drop due to less electricity purchases which means less to steal. They are in big trouble as I suspect the numbers leaving the grid are going to be far higher than anticipated.