My solar installation cannot happen soon enough and it seems like I am one of the fortunate few who can go entirely of the grid. Todays news is highlighting that Eskom the SOE for power supply is not being paid by the Johannesburg City Council. Residents pay their electricity bills and that money is not being passed on so Eskom which is owed R4.9 billion has stated they have no choice, but to cut power.
Loadshedding set to continue at no fault of the residents, but the poor mismanagement of collected funds by the City Of Johannesburg.
Eskom has mentioned that they will cut power in the form of load shedding until they are paid the outstanding balance owed to them. f you were a private business you would do exactly this and I do not see this as being unreasonable and people should be asking where are the missing funds?
My solar has already been paid for and the delay has been the bank clearance. The supplier can see the funds, but they have not been cleared and we expected them to clear some time this last Friday as that would have been 5 working days. I paid the previous Thursday and expected the normal 3 day clearance, but this is an international transfer which could be the hold up. Saying that the money I have moved previously was not via the normal bank route and this took 2 days to reflect.
With this latest news I suspect solar prices will sky rocket due to demand and then the proposed new electricity tariff to increase by over 36%. These increase are not in line with anything we can compare and is totally absurd. I suspect once my solar is installed this week I could pay this off within less than 30 months which is also kind of crazy when I first thought it would be 54 months.
That is not all as here are penalties for anyone who has solar and dips back to the main grid for topping up purposes and those fees are expected to be at an increased rate of 321%. If you have solar you make sure you go off the grid properly and not just to make a saving as that move will cost you far more than you are currently paying.
This does not make any sense I know as many will be scratching their heads because those going to solar should be easing the strain on the grid. This is Africa so there is no sense and the only goal of the government is to make you pay as you are seen as stealing from them now by not requiring their services.
Remove yourself from the grid entirely or you will R554 monthly even if you do not use any of the grids power.
We will see how my 16kwh system works when it is up and running and if I need an additional 8kwh which will be added if required. I am leaving nothing to chance plus having a generator converted to topping up the solar batteries if required. Going back to the grid is not an option.