Municipality amends the solar policy to assist residents

The current electricity constraints and higher levels of loadshedding have prompted many property owners to opt for an alternative means to power their households.

Mossel Bay Municipality has made an effort to amend its small-scale embedded generation policy to assist residents.

Much work has been done to simplify the application form, making it more user friendly.

At a special council meeting on Thursday, 10 August, it was decided there will be a waiver on the standard building plan fee for solar installations.

For the installation of solar systems on mainly residential and small business properties, a minor building works application (building plan) is required.

The applicable tariff for 2023/24, approved by Council on 30 May, is R1 300.

To assist property owners with solar installations, the tariff of R1 300 will be waived and only the minor building works tariff of R560 will be charged.

The municipality recommends that residents opting to install solar photo voltaic smallscale embedded generation systems make use of industryaccredited installers under a third party quality assurance. It is the municipality’s intention to make such industry accreditation a requirement in future.

It is a requirement in terms of the policy to have all embedded generation systems installed on the Mossel Bay grid signed off during the commissioning stage of the project. For inverters up to 30 kVA, sign-off is required from an industry accredited installer or a registered professional engineer or technologist.

It is also important to note, under the amended policy that customers residing within the Mossel Bay municipal boundaries, but located in a residential development that receives an 11kV bulk electrical supply, need to apply to their body corporate or homeowners’ association for consent to connect SSEG to their electrical grid.

The guideline in the amended policy is therefore not applicable to customers residing within the municipal boundaries, but being supplied directly by residential development that receives 11kV bulk electrical supplies.

These consumers need not apply to the municipality. It is important to note that in such a case, equipment should not be purchased prior to obtaining written approval from the body corporate or homeowners’ association.