Is it working?

It is working to a limited extent among those municipalities that have implemented schemes. Cape Town has a general scheme for consumers but Buffalo City, Tshwane, Ekurhuleni, eThekwini and Nelson Mandela Bay have feed-in tariffs at various levels and agreements with some consumers to contribute to the grid. Government has largely achieved the goal of enabling net billing, but we will continue to monitor the deliverable to see if a critical mass of distributors to implement general feed-in schemes.

Actions

With the regulatory framework in place it is now up to municipalities and Eskom to put them into action. There are 165 municipalities and Eskom involved in distribution in the country. Each distributor would need to design its own rules including a tariff for those feeding into the grid and provide for equipment that would enable net metering. So far only Cape Town has a generally available scheme in place but other municipalities have set up limited feed-in schemes.

Are there plans?

Nersa published final net billing rules on 17 December 2024. Some municipalities had already implemented schemes based on the draft guildelines. The rules set out a basis on which distributors can credit inputs into the grid against the bills of consumers.

Is it on the agenda?

In April 2023, Nersa published draft net bililng rules for public comment. These advise municipalities on how best to develop net billing tariffs to pay customers for feeidng into the grid.

Goals

The goal is to enable municipalities to procure excess electricity from households (for example, from rooftop solar) to support local grid capacity.