Should you register your solar installation

[Isetech]

If you live in the Cape I hear it is a good idea to register, the rest of the country, it seems nobody is too bothered about registration, because the councils are not ready for the million plus application if everyone does decide to do the right thing and register.

How are they going to monitor registrations and identify sites which are not registered ? I still cant get an answer with regards to penalies or fines, it seems ther earent any because there is no infrastructure or staff to deal with them and no meters to replace the old meters.

I read an article about the council rolling out smart meters so that they can switch off your applicances, how true it is well only time will tell.

I am all for registering, but when it becomes a major complication and nobody bothers to reply to emails and the mails are returned undelivered, well thats when I tend to climb off the train and join the masses.

Will they use:

1/ Tax rebate applications maybe?

2/ The people who send the tax and ID info of the cusoter when installing solar panels

2/ Your electricity account to identify you might have solar installed, its a lot simpler than you think. An average house uses a certain amount of electricity, suddenly your usage drops, bingo time to do a site visit. I hear of customers submitting actaul reading which are lower then the estimated are being billed at the old rate, if you complain they send someone out to check your meter

Lets do it right and register, how do we register ?

[GCE]

If you live in the Cape I hear it is a good idea to register, the rest of the country, it seems nobody is too bothered about registration, because the councils are not ready for the million plus application if everyone does decide to do the right thing and register.

PE is a simply process - You fill in a 2 page document and mail it through to electricity department
Jeffery's Bay / Humansdorp/St Francis bay area similar process

Had meetings with both and hopefully PE representatives will address members at the meeting on Thursday this week on the processes and what is and not allowed which is all documented under NRS-097 already since 2010

I believe George Knysna area is similar .

[Isetech]

I drove to the Cape and thought I was in a different country when I crossed the border between KZN and the Cape.

A friend moved to the Cape and told how different it is livng in the Cape. He left due to the extremely high rate of crime, his house was being robbed literally every month, spent 100s of thosands on electric fencing and security and still got all his elctrical cables cut and removed, I had to rewire the house.

I have family in PE, when I stopped over for the night, I was concerned about my vehicle in the driveway becasue it was loaded with all our stuff, they found it rather amusing.

Things dont work as well in other parts of SA, this SSEG registration is proving to be a good example.

[Isetech]

For now Iam going to do as other do in our part of the country, wait till they decide to procecute someone.

For the record I want to do the right thing, so if anyone can steer me in the right direction.

We been without electricity for 3 days again, its time to reduce my R3500 elkectricity bill and go semi off grid. Discussed it with the family over the weekend and they are on board.

I am going to spend around R350K on a system, it is to keep my business operational

[Isetech]

Lets try understand how the registration works.

There are certain requirements to register your system, one which includes an engineer.

I have been "shopping" around for an engineer to work with me, one who has the qualifications, knowledge and experience to justify the R1000-R1500 per hour they are going to charge me for their services.

If the engineer was at a level like Ian Mee, with his qualification, knowledge and experience, I wouldnt bat an eye lid to pay the man R5000 per hour because he taught me to become an MIE 30 years ago and has been around the block many times, I have worked with him in hospitals, sugar mills, factories and and many other large projects, normal and classified. Unfortunetely he is too busy to asisst with registrations.

What is required of the engineer, they have to check that your design, installation, commisioning and testing is correct.

Here the part that I dont understand, It is a requirement that I have to be an IE or MIE. What that means...for those who dont know, years and years and a few more years technical and practical training and experience to become and IE, then many more years and years and more years of training both theoretical and practical training. Do you know why there are so few MIE's, because it is a long slow difficult journey, ask anyone who has tried.

If seems the challenge to find an engineer who is "qualified" enough to sign off the installation, surely the engineer would need be suitable qualified and experienced to as the IE and MIE, if they ar egoing to test and commision systems.

What I am being told is that I have to appoint someone to design the installation, which I have already done. I then have to get the engineer to test the installation that I have already installed, commissioned and tested.

The best part is that the customer has to fork out what it cost them to do the entire installation and and some to pay the engineer to sign off the SSEG.

Now I am starting to understand why so few installtions are being registered.

By the time the customer has finished paying all the extras for the non compliant initial COC's for the house and sll the otehr extras, then they ar eslapped with another R10 - R20 000 for an engineer to check that the work completed is ok.