10/05/2024
CAUTION,
do not enter into the Cape Town City’s electricity buyback program until you understand the full cost implications.
The R6000 discounted meter is not the only cost that you have to pay. The City requires that you mount the meter in a special box on the exterior wall of your property boundary.
Additionally you have to replace the existing supply cable from your meter to your distribution board with a new armoured
cable.
A recent estimate received for these costs was R24 000.00, making the total cost of the project at least R30 000.00.
The City is only offering to pay R1.0249 per kW you supply to them.
This is only one third of the amount you must pay on the cheapest home user tariff for any electricity
you consume.
Assuming 100% solar production all year round with an averaged 10kW per day excess you can sell to the city it will take 8 years to pay of the above example of R30 000.00 costs.
If you include the lost interest you could have earned on this money, at 8%p.a, on a simple interest calculation that’s an additional R19 200.00 opportunity cost, meaning the true cost to be a supplier to the City is R49 200.00
That’s a 13.47 years payback period!
In the rest of the world where similar systems have been implemented, the administrations have offered 1 for 1 unit credits meaning for every unit you supply to them you can consume at a later point for free.
For a City that says it is progressive and working for you, it has to be asked why they are not following the same procedure?
