GEORGE NEWS - The owner of an industrial business in George, Jacques du Plooy of Teniqua Roofing, has fed a total of 21 000 units of electricity into the grid of the George Municipality since about March 2022, but eventually, in early December, he cut the feed-in because the municipality is not paying him for the supply.

When he set up his generating system, he installed a costly meter prescribed by the municipality with a view to permanently feeding into the municipal grid and earning a return on excess power generated. 

His business is closed for four weeks over the Christmas holiday and all the power generated at his factory could have been put back into the municipality's grid. 

"I am paying R24 000 per year for electricity availability and strictly speaking I paid an additional R60 000 with the units I fed into the grid which they sold. It boggles the mind as one would think that the municipality could make use of additional supply to reduce load-shedding, as is being done in Cape Town, but they would rather lose the extra units than pay me," he says.

According to Electrotechnical Services Director Bongani Mandla, the municipality has a process whereby all municipal customers are permitted to be on the small scale embedded generation (SSEG) tariff and, where the network allows, the customer may also be credited (on their municipal bill) for the energy that is fed back to the grid, if they are a net consumer - in other words, if they do not feed back more than their total usage. The amount of credit may not exceed the total rand value of energy bought from the council in the financial year.

Customers have to apply for the SSEG tariff. "This cannot be automatically done by the municipality in situations where more than one tariff is applicable. The impact of the tariff change will be investigated by the client or his consultant before any application is submitted, since the municipality cannot be held liable for the effect of such a change on the monthly bill," says Mandla.

"There are a number of customers who are on the correct tariff to feed into the municipal grid, and they are getting 90% of the Eskom cost as a credit against their bill. This is one of the best feed-in tariffs nationally and is available for both industrial, commercial and residential consumers."

Mandla says Du Plooy was not on the correct tariff to receive credits for feed-in. "The customer needs to apply for the correct tariff. Our electrotechnical department has requested information from the client in order to determine if his system was approved and proposes a meeting in address the matter. An appointment will be made from our department's side."

Procurement process required for big systems
Mandla says if a customer has installed a much larger system and wants to feed back power to the municipality beyond its total energy requirements, a municipal procurement process is required.

Mandla says a consumer may also make use of another option, namely the wheeling policy and process which the municipality has put in place. "However, there are also a number of requirements to this process such as the connection that needs to be on medium voltage, as well as signing of various contracts with the municipality."

A specific meter, the 4-quadrant meter (as installed by Du Plooy), is a standard requirement for all SSEG customers, even those who do not feed into the grid.

Responding to a query regarding the City of Cape Town reducing load-shedding for some of its residents by buying electricity from private suppliers, Mandla says Cape Town has various power stations within its grid which allows it to offset some of the demands, and lessen the impact of load-shedding for its consumers. "George has also embarked on a number of various renewable energy projects with the intention of reducing reliance on Eskom in the near future."

He says over and above the technical requirements, there are legislative requirements that govern how a municipality procures electricity and those must be met.

• In July last year, Cape Town announced a programme to buy power from commercial and industrial producers, who will be allowed to send power to the grid for cash in return.

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