Like most government influenced institutions, Eskom and Gwede are not full of will in order to get things done. This is probably more true of Gwede Mantashe than it is of Eskom’s newest CEO, who, despite probably having lots of behind the scenes politics, has done some quite impressive things so far.
The recent leap forward to a 100MW limit before registration was very welcome and somewhat of a surprise. Implementation is a whole other red tape process in the making. I am certain there will be a government oversight committee to oversee the committee that oversees the other thing to get this thing done!
The existing limitations on installing a solar system are archaic and lack the logic required to whoever made these initial restrictions.Β These need to be revisited and revised urgently as these limitations pretty much means that should you exceed their parameters (very easily done on a residential system) your system becomes non-compliant and you should not really be attached to the grid.
This is all very succinctly put in the attached article, essentially the basic logic of the cadre who issued this NRS 098 2-1 standard for embedded generation used the following logic:
A standard house with a single phase 60A supply is limited to 3.68kW PV supply. (The same ratios for 80A and or 3 phase)
The (wrong assumption) is that if all houses pushing power back into the grid at higher than these levels, would induce a Voltage rise on the grid therefore causing a problem.
In the dark ages before the invention of the wheel, there may have been a case for this, however, things have progressed very rapidly for those of us outside of government and SOE’s this is not true. In the initial stages or renewabkes and inverters, voltage regulationΒ was not part of the inverters mechanics. This is no longer true and has been the case for the past many years, even for the low end inverters that lack a great many of the features of your Victron’s and Deye type inverters.
This needs to change and perhaps when the numerous e-mailed petitions slow down a little, we can focus on a targeted campaign to address this travesty of renewable justice!
https://mybroadband.co.za/news/energy/406728-absurd-assumption-about-solar-power-for-homes-in-south-africa.html?utm_source=newsletter