This month has actually been a steady month having used less electricity from the grid yet we all know there is still going to be a large bill coming. The less you use the more we seem to pay as the power company are quite resourceful keeping their revenue the same each month. This month I had less staff working at the house so the overall consumption reflects that. I will be happy when things at work are back to normal which hopefully we will know later this week. The power generation is also down which is directly impacted from later sunrises and earlier sunsets as we are in winter now. This is the perfect time over the next two months to finish this installation off once and for all knowing I have sufficient solar power to go off grid.
One of my friends has a factory entirely off the grid using solar and is the person who arranges that I buy the solar equipment at trade prices through his company. He has been off the grid for two years and still to this day receives a monthly power bill. He has had his grid connection removed at his request and owes R4.5 million and some change. This is total madness as he owes zero money and how do they even do the meter readings to charge him when he has no meter? I know my bill is incorrect yet it is very confusing and trying to get this corrected is not that easy. When the people helping you do not understand either then you have no hope. Their advice each time is to pay the bill and once the billing systems are operational again they will refund or credit the difference.
For those that do not know the systems are all still down which includes electricity and the deeds office so no properties can change hands until they are back on line. This all broke down in late January and we are now in June so you wonder who is fixing this or is this down on purpose because 5 months is a crazy length of time. The site states they are operational, but then they must be working through the back log or it is not fixed and who do you believe?
His set up is fascinating as he has two large banks of solar panels on two switches. On sunny days he can only use 1 bank of solar panels and overcast days he can switch on both banks without fear of overloading his inverter. His factory has big power hungry machines and having the extra solar bank guarantees the machines run every day no matter the weather.
I spoke with him last week as my batteries are Sunsynk and the place where I source my equipment had a falling out with Sunsynk and no longer stock that brand. The batteries I am now getting is the exact same battery coming out the same factory just with a different name. The solar supplying company have a good business relationship with the factory and Sunsynk cannot do a thing to stop this. This is the danger of letting an agent get so big as they are in the top 10 list of growing companies in Africa. They saw how much they were being ripped off and cut them out of the process.
The good news is I know what my shopping list entails to get off the grid and the bad news is electricity prices are going up again. The City of Johannesburg needs an extra R97 billion on their budget so there are across the board increases.
Electricity 8.6% increase
Water 12.5%
Sanitation 11%
Refuse removal 6.2%
Property rates 3.6%
This is how they plus their financial holes through charging more instead of routing out corruption. All this does is force more people to leave the grid permanently so they are doing everyone a big favor. The 8.6% is never an exact number and it will be double digits.
