[Question] Where to from here

[Isetech]

Its time...the reality is that solar/inverter/batteries are the next best thing since slided bread.Unfortunately the Eskom saga has become the hightlight of the media.

From tommorow we step up the installation program and start doing work for customers beyond our reguler base list, which means that things start getting complicated and a decisions have to be be made, do we quote and install as a hit and run company, which will be closed within 2-5 years so that we will be gone by the time the council decided to take action against cusotmer who are have not registered systems, or well within the 10-25 year warranties being promised?

You shouldnt be worried about the logger or the electricity bill for designing a system.

These are the questions you should be asking:

1/ What are the bylaws for the council in the area you live, do I need to register the system and more import, what is the penalty for not registering?

2/ Do I ne need an engineer, a green card holder, an IE or MIE to sign off the project and are all these people involved in the design and installation aware of the bylaws?

3/ At what point do I get an engineer invloved, at the start of the project, at end?

4/ Who untimatley becomes liable/responsiblity for the design, installation and registration, the customer (responsible person), the person who signs the COC or the engineer?

5/ Has the lithium batteries been installed in a safe location?

6/ What size inverter and how many solar panels can be installed on the property, are ther even limits?

7/ What will happen if I have installed a 16 KVA inverter with 20 kwp of power on my roof, if it doesnt fall within the bylaws, will it have to be removed or disconnect.

8/ If the installation was done 3 years ago and never registered and the company who installed the system is long gone, what is going to happen with my installation?


How is the local municipalities dealing with this issue. Do you think they should be creating more public awareness?

Do you feel it should be the customers responsiblity to make sure they are using a company who are familiar with the local bylaws?

Do you think anything will be done about the unregistered systems?

As a contractor, can you sign off a installation and walk away without being held respisible for the system not being registered?

If you add a clause in your quote, which is something I have noticed in many of the quotes, which states that the installer can "recomend" and engineer.

[Derlyn]

And that is why I haven't caught this train.

[Isetech]

The reality is that many have already jumped on board this multi billion rand industry.

At the end of the day, the big question is going to be, who will loose and we all know the answer to that question, "the resposnsible person".

Who is the repsonsibley person, the customer?

Something else to look at, the banks are throwing billions at customers, locking them into long term loans, offering approved installers.

What happens if you install a 12 KVA unit with 20 kwp of solar for expample, which appently is not approved by local councils, and you cant register the system because the installer clearly stated in the quote that they dont offer registration services, but can recommend an engineer to register the system, but the engineer who should have been involved in the project from the design phase, is aware that the system cannot be registered, so they decline.

What will happen to your installation and the loan you will be paying off literally the rest of your life.

These installtions are popping up by the day, literally everyday on my way to sites, I see panels being installed.

[Isetech]

Can anyone answer any of these questions?

1/ Who is responsible for the registration of the solar installation?

2/ Who is responsible for the solar installation, the respossible person (being the owner) the person who signs the COC or the engineer who signs the reigistration document.

3/ Who will be resposible fro any penalties dished out by the council?

4/ Can you as the installer (name of the COC) pass the buck onto the responsible person (owner) if the brown stuff hits the fan when the council notices a reduction in the electricity bill?

5/ Will the engineer become the resposible person for the installation as soon as they put pen to paper and sign the registration forms?

6/ If the installer notifies the resposible person (owner) that the system must be registered in the quote, can the owner try pass the buck onto the installer when things get sticky.

7/ Do all the municiplies have systems in place to deal with registratations and how are they going to deal with unregistered systems and creating public awareness ( please share links so we can see the inforamtion) ?

8/ What will happen if you install a 12 kva system on a dosmestic property, will you get to use the system on yopur property but not allowed to export?

9/ Do you think the local radio stations should be covering (creating public awareness) for this extremely improtant information?

10/ What will happen if you applied for a R500k load from the bank for a 16 KVA inverter and 30 panels on the roof, and a bank approved installers installtion is not approved by the municipality or exceeds the legal limit?

[Isetech]

What is the municiplaities doing to create public awareness?

Do they send out notices to people who are submitting lower than average meter reading?

Do they carry out a meter audits?

If they do an audit and find you have an unregistered solar installtion, what do they do about it?

There are rumours that all meter will be replaced with smart meter and I have noticed a lot more "smart meters" being installed.

If you have a prepaid meter, do you have to register your soalr system?

What are the costs involved in regsitering a solar system?

What is monthly fee for a registered solar system?

Does your municiplaiy offer a feed back tarriff?

Do you have to register your sytem to qualifiy for the tax incentives being offered by the governement?

So many question and I work in the industry, imagine what it must be like for Joe Soap (the sucker who is responsible for their electric al installation ) who just want sto keep the lights on, watching local media telling everyone about all the crooks at the top responsible for providing the power to keep the lights, failing dismally.

These desperate times creating a desperate environment with people leading by example

[Isetech]

Lets say I want to install solar panels on my roof so that I can make use of the tax incentives, will I have to register my system to qualify.

lets use Ethekweni municiplay as an example.

Where do we start, send an email info@durban.gov.za (sent)

Lets see if we can register a system with them.

[Isetech]

I downloaded and read the "Commisioning report for the embedded generation"

It is the resposible persons (the owner) responsibilty to abide by the council bylaws and to employ the services of an electrical engineer who will have to register the solar system, not the elctrical contractor nor the installers.

The engineer will have to fill out the document and submit it to the council electricity department.

Section 2 will have the "installers" qualification and accreditation number , however the the engineer will have to make sure that there is a COC and it is attached to their registration document.

The engineer will have to complete section C which is a declaration with regards to compliance.

The engineer will also have to make sure that the installtion complies with NRS 097-2-1 and installation complies with relevant sections of SANS 10142-1.

As the installer/electrical contractor you dont need to add any clauses etc to your quote with regard sto registering the system, it is not your responsiblity.

You just need to make sure that your part of the elctrical work is compliant, however the engineer will have to declare the design is compliant and the equipment installed is compliant and has all the releveant safty features.

This is good news and I am glad I took the time to sort this out. If I were the repsonsible person (the property owner) I would submit this council registration document to my insurance.

[Isetech]

IF you register your system with Ethekwini

The feed in energy will be remunerated via a credit on the customer’s account.(Feed in energy Rate x Number of kWh’s generated onto grid = Financial Credit)

@R1.25 per kwh

Network Access Charge (NAC): The NAC will be charged based on the size of the inverter (kVA)(Inverter size (kVA) x Network Access Charge Rate (R/kVA) = Financial Debit)

@R22.03 per kva ... 5 kva inverter 5 x 22.03=R110.17 per month.

[Isetech]

I found this document for Cape Town, I dont know if it would apply to Durban, will have to keep searching.

https://www.sseg.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/Establishing-an-SSEG-Application-and-Approval-process-in-a-Municipality-AMEU-Resource-Pack.pdf

[Isetech]

Desperate times call for desperate measures, the question is how will you (the customer) be punished for your desperate measure to keep the lights on.

People like myslef installing these systems are smiling with all the work rolling in, the bigger the system the more work, so why am I even wasting my time typing this thread, because I plan to be around in the next 10 years. I need to make sure I do things right.

Everyone smiles when the lights are on and everything is working great , let the council arrive at the customers door and start threatening legal action, penalities etc and you will see how quickly those smiles dissappear.

This is why being a "consulting" company is the way forward, you sit in and office supply the goods and sub contract everything out to installers and fools who are going to sign the documents and deal with the customers face to face (you dont even have to tell anyone your real name ), When the brown stuff starts flying, you close your office door, switch the light off and move to a new location and start over.

[Isetech]

Lets get this right

First you need to read this information, which has attachemts,

https://www.durban.gov.za/pages/residents/electricity-services

The attachments

https://www.durban.gov.za/storage/PDF%20Documents/Application%20guidelines.pdf

https://www.durban.gov.za/storage/Documents/Electricity%20Forms/Application_Forms.pdf

https://www.durban.gov.za/storage/Documents/Electricity%20Forms/Comissioning%20Report.pdf

[Isetech]

Lets say you havent followed the correct process (desperate times) a consulting company has sold you a system, got sub contracotrs in to install the system and now you sit with an unregistered sytem which is working, you dont even know that their is load shedding because the lights now stay on.

You submitt your meter reading like yo udo every month and noticed a drop in the usage. Your useage was 30 kwh (the avg for a standard domestic dwelling) but now only 15 kwh per day.

You get your bill at the end of the month and you notice it hasnt dropped, but instead you are being billed 25 kwh average estimate, you ccontact the metering department and are informed that ther emust be something wrong with the meter.

The council inform you that they will have to send someone from the metering deaprtment to check the meter, and that people is where the fight is going to start.

[Isetech]

Now we sit with thousands, maybe tens or hundreds off thousands of unrigistered systems around SA.

What now,

Will the council send you a warning letter?

Will you be fined?

Will your electricity be disconnected at the meter?

Can you isolate your system from the grid?

Can the system stay connected provided you dont feed back into the grid?

How will the council estimate the penalty, if your system is efficient and you have the system set to zero expeort, which has resulted in a huge reduction in the bill.

So you actually helped the council reduce your impact on the grid.

Not if you have only installed a backup system with no panels. Those new lithium batteries will break the grid if everyone starting pulling 5000 watts + to re charge them after load shedding.

[Isetech]

Lets shuffle this around a bit,

Lets say you are an instaler and you need the work, so you decide to go ahead and install a system and preapre it for when the application is completed and the council have installed the correct meter etc.

Can you go ahead and install the system, I dont see why not.

The way we have designed the system we install, you can isolate the entire system form the council electricity, it has a bypass switch next to the inverter and it has a function which can restrict the export of elctricity.

So the system can be fully installed with a socket outlet below the Ac bypass switch, which you could plug in an extention lead and plug in a couple lights and the fridge.

Once the application is approved, you can then switch over to inverter and feed power into the elctrical installation.

You can then factory reset inverter, which will clear all the data stored in the system and start fresh.

I am living and learning, feel free to step in and correct anything that might be incorrect.

I want to do this right.

We need to create public awareness.

I am suprised Carte Blanche or the local radio station havent created public awareness.

I see a lot of giba gaba about load shedding and Eskon and how corrupt every everyone is, but nothing about what is going to happen when the dust settles and grid stablises and they realise how much renvenue is now being lost.

[Isetech]

Tax incentive for solar, yipee, how many solar panels (KWp) can you install on the roof and still be able to register the system?

Are there any restriction with regards to the size of the inverter installed on a domestic property?

Just so many question and so few answers, I am sure the answers are out there.

Can I install a 16 KVA inverter in my house and register it?