Speaker 1: Well as ESKIM continues its campaign to get everyone with
Speaker 1: the solar installation registered by March next year. At the
Speaker 1: new warnings that actually, if you have a solar installation,
Speaker 1: you might be paying quite a high fixed charge to ESKIM.
Speaker 1: That's even if your system is currently properly registered with
Speaker 1: ESKIM or with your council. Professor Vali Padiachi is a
Speaker 1: former executive manager of ESKUM and a former senior executive
Speaker 1: of City Power in Johannesburg. Is a power and energy expert.
Speaker 1: A value good evening. So, as I understand it, anyone
Speaker 1: who uses electricity is going to have paid to maintain
Speaker 1: the network. Okay, I get that. What kind of fee then,
Speaker 1: can someone who's relying on solar force a sixty percent
Speaker 1: of their domestic use, their home use, how much would
Speaker 1: they expect to pay in terms of a network fee?
Speaker 1: Would it be quite a big amount?
Speaker 2: Living stevening to you and your listener and thank you
Speaker 2: for inviting me to the Bunny Show. Yes, in fact,
Speaker 2: that fee a bunch of related fee, but it would
Speaker 2: be a reasonable fee. And it's also contextual. I mean,
Speaker 2: depending on the user, it could be i or low.
Speaker 2: But there's definitely a fee, and my understanding is that
Speaker 2: that it comes with a free smart meter, and would
Speaker 2: the three smart meter together with all the applications that
Speaker 2: goes with it, it's about nine to ten thousand lands Steven.
Speaker 1: Okay, this is only if you're continuing to use Eskum
Speaker 1: while you're using solar as your primary source of electricity.
Speaker 1: In other words, if you're off the grid entirely, you
Speaker 1: don't need to worry about this, right.
Speaker 2: Yes, In other words, you only if you're grid tied.
Speaker 2: And let me define good tide. Good tide means obviously
Speaker 2: you're connected to the grid, but it also means that
Speaker 2: even if you don't generate, but you are good tie,
Speaker 2: than you're liabel for the fees we goad tore the
Speaker 2: misnomer from developer than some of the users that even
Speaker 2: if you're collated to the grid and you don't generate,
Speaker 2: you're off grid. Now you're also good tyed.
Speaker 1: Okay, So if you are then using solar, so you
Speaker 1: use so you're buying a lot less electricity from eskin.
Speaker 1: Would you be paying a higher network fee per mega
Speaker 1: what hour than someone who only uses Eskum and therefore
Speaker 1: uses more Eskim electricity. I suppose what I'm trying to
Speaker 1: say is that if you have a solar installation and
Speaker 1: you use say, let's just say that someone who's using
Speaker 1: Eskim completely is using one hundred percent, right, if you're
Speaker 1: only using forty percent because you're using solar for the
Speaker 1: other sixty percent, would the network fee per mega what
Speaker 1: hour be higher for you?
Speaker 2: Well, I think if you do the mathematics, it would
Speaker 2: it would default to that. But but just to make
Speaker 2: it simple, Steven in other words, whether you use the
Speaker 2: grid or not, but if you're good tired, you'll pay
Speaker 2: a fee. And so the advantage is if you want
Speaker 2: to get the advantages of your having the grid of
Speaker 2: the backup, you would use the solar. But it's no
Speaker 2: use you, I mean transpenity that that you're good tired
Speaker 2: and you don't use that network. And I would probably say,
Speaker 2: if you've got an holiday own, a set to be
Speaker 2: corrected day. But I think I'm correct If you've got
Speaker 2: an holiday own and you're good tired, then then I
Speaker 2: think you'll be liable for if it's judged whether you
Speaker 2: use or not.
Speaker 1: Okay, So there would be a fixed network fee of
Speaker 1: X and it doesn't matter how much electricity you use,
Speaker 1: you would pay the same network fee.
Speaker 2: Yes, because well understandably, Steven, when you say maintained that
Speaker 2: a people's that's there twenty four by seven. That's keeping
Speaker 2: the grid alive, maintaining it and keeping it in the
Speaker 2: float for the for the user who probably at two
Speaker 2: o'clock in the morning, who doesn't have any wind to generate,
Speaker 2: would default to the grid, and it's there available for you.
Speaker 2: So you pay for that service, Steven, and I say
Speaker 2: that with all hubility and with the utmost respect. So
Speaker 2: it's not an elegant response.
Speaker 1: No, no, no, sure, I get that. I think what's
Speaker 1: really changing here is that in the past you might
Speaker 1: have expected to pay a higher network fee for more
Speaker 1: electricity that you use. Now it would be the same
Speaker 1: no matter how much you use.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think just to also clarify that, to make
Speaker 2: it a bit more simpler. In other words, you are
Speaker 2: if you're good tired, and the fee that SCOM is
Speaker 2: asking for it, and also the municipalities we'll also ask
Speaker 2: for that is that because you're using the grid battery.
Speaker 2: So if you didn't use the grid at the battery,
Speaker 2: if you were totally off the grid and if there
Speaker 2: are those sun and wind, you would have had to
Speaker 2: have a backup battery yourself. So whether you get it
Speaker 2: yourself or you're getting it from utility, you're paying for that.
Speaker 1: Professor Vali, thank you so much. Former executive manager of
Speaker 1: ESKU and former senior executive at City Power and Power
Speaker 1: and energy expert. Listening to that, Wayne Duvinage, the CEO
Speaker 1: of the organization Undoing Tax Abuse, Wayne good evening, is
Speaker 1: this a reasonable approach by Eskiman Municipalities?
Speaker 2: Ah?
Speaker 3: Yes, Stevens. It's quite frustrating, you know, to have government
Speaker 3: incentivizing the public to go off grid use you know,
Speaker 3: find alternatives, give you incentives through sars, begging you to
Speaker 3: go of grid, and when you do so, and then
Speaker 3: they realize the is now going to hurt economic model.
Speaker 3: They want to charge you more if you are off
Speaker 3: grid or not completely off grid, but if you have
Speaker 3: alternative electricity and they're putting it, by the way, just
Speaker 3: on solar, and there's a lot of irrationality. So let
Speaker 3: me just explain to you. Somebody next door has a
Speaker 3: solar system and you next door to them build a house.
Speaker 3: It is extremely efficient and you have let's say gas
Speaker 3: as thoves and gas skeezers, which you can do and
Speaker 3: you're not connected to a solar system, but you've reduced
Speaker 3: all your electricity. You're not going to pay, but you've
Speaker 3: also taken away a lot of the use of Eskam's electricity.
Speaker 3: And if you're at the coast, by the way, you
Speaker 3: can introduce a system, a battery part system that is
Speaker 3: partner by very efficient small home installed wind generators, but
Speaker 3: it doesn't apply to them. So there's an inconsistency here.
Speaker 3: And I think what Eskin needs to know is that
Speaker 3: the public are our getting frustrated with us, and I
Speaker 3: don't think they're going to have a big uptake with
Speaker 3: this registration process. It's going to be a crunch come
Speaker 3: March April next year and they're going to have a
Speaker 3: big problem with this issue.
Speaker 1: The other thing it seems to me is that if
Speaker 1: someone has the money to get a solar system, they
Speaker 1: probably can also spend another twenty thousand round on a
Speaker 1: backup generator for when they can't use solar, and it
Speaker 1: would be cheaper in the longer run. Anyone who's still
Speaker 1: financing the home with a bond might find this easier
Speaker 1: and the longer run to just go off grid completely
Speaker 1: cut escum. Yes, you will need to hassle of running
Speaker 1: a generator, but you would save a lot more money.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you will, especially if that fee starts to You
Speaker 3: know a lot of people have reduced their home electricity
Speaker 3: bill bar let's say two and a half thousand and
Speaker 3: three thousand now here they come with this additional network
Speaker 3: fee of another one thousand round you are going to
Speaker 3: do the sums and you know, you get very efficient
Speaker 3: generators these days, gas generators, quiet generators, and you'll take
Speaker 3: every thing else of the system. I mean a guess
Speaker 3: gizer now far more efficient than electricity geezers and guests stove,
Speaker 3: so you literally will need very little of electricity. So
Speaker 3: the push to now go off grid, as they said,
Speaker 3: as these additional fixed fee and network charges come on board,
Speaker 3: is going to be, I think as ESKUM shooting themselves
Speaker 3: in the foot. It's going to push a lot of
Speaker 3: people to say, well, let's go that extra twenty percent
Speaker 3: and go off grid completely. And that's not going to
Speaker 3: do ESKIM all the municipalities any favors.
Speaker 1: Wayne duven Age is the CEO at the organization I'm
Speaker 1: doing tax abuse,