How to stimulate the South African rooftop PV market without putting electricity distributors’ financial stability at risk [Conference presentation]

Abstract

Due to drastically reduced prices for Photovoltaic (PV) systems and significantly increased electricity tariffs recently, small scale embedded generators (particularly PV units) are now attractive for many electricity customers in South Africa. Rooftop Solar PV installations are already increasing in South Africa as seen in the policy mechanisms recently introduced by several municipalities for feeding electricity back into their distribution grids. A large market uptake of Solar PV without any countermeasures will put the financial stability of electricity distributors (municipalities and Eskom) at risk because self-consumed PV energy reduces electricity sales which they need to cover their fixed cost of building, operating and maintaining the distribution grid, as well as cost of metering and billing.