Ideal opportunity to dump Eskom
Category What's happening in Plettenberg Bay
If ever there was a time for community housing schemes to install their own power plants and become independent of Eskom, it is now.
Property owners in community housing schemes such as Sectional Title complexes and gated estates should be celebrating the newly-gazetted change to the Electricity Generation Act regulations, which will allow private individuals and businesses to generate up to 100MW of electricity for their own use without having to obtain a licence from the National Electricity Regulator.
The changes to the legislation were announced by President Cyril Ramaphosa in June and gazetted in August.
According to Nedbank's chief economist Nicky Weimar, the bank has seen a "huge" number of requests from companies wanting to take advantage of government now allowing for 100MW embedded power generation without requiring a licence.
Weimar told the International Housing Solutions virtual conference if it were not for the renewable energy sector in SA, the electricity shortage would have been much worse and the impact on the economy and jobs much more dramatic.
Helen Ward, Principal of Helen Melon Properties said property owners have been saddled with significant increased municipal electricity tariffs recently.
And it might also be time for individual property owners to start looking at their energy requirements and finding "freedom" from power-cuts and blackouts, says Ward.
Systems for individual households range from R95 000 to R250 000 for single-phase houses.
A household can go to any percentage they want, according to their budget, says Peter Andrews of Alternative Energy Contractors in Plettenberg Bay.
For example: a house that is using 1300 KWH every month will be approx. 70% off the grid. That would mean that they would have 6.5KW of photovoltaic panels on the roof facing as close to North as possible with a 5 KW inverter and 10 to 12 KW of lithium batteries. Going off grid is very expensive and impractical within a municipal area as there will always be a basic charge to maintain the network in your area.
Andrews' website www.aecsolar.co.za gives an explanation of what is meant by Grid Tied, Off Grid and Hybrid, which is a Grid Tied system with storage or a combination of both Grid Tied and Off Grid.
All municipalities have now standardised and will allow feedback, however they will differ on the rate and what they have negotiated with the NERSA agreement. For Plett it is a flat rate for SSEGs (Small Scale Embedded Generator) and each application is reviewed on a case by case basis.
Local solar suppliers in the Plett area are;
Alternative Energy Contractors, speak to Peter 060 367 3774
Blue Planet Power, speak to Aiden on 081 460 3607
Energy Engineering, speak to Philip on 076 426 0137
Author: Helen Ward