Solar power in the Western Cape

Cape Town treats every system as grid-tied

Under the City's Electricity Supply By-law, every PV system in its supply area must be registered and authorised before it's switched on, with a professional sign-off and an inverter from the City's approved list (updated in June 2026). That applies whether or not you plan to export power. You choose between a feed-in system, which sends surplus to the grid for credit, and a non-feed-in system that blocks reverse power flow.

If the City finds an unregistered system, the owner gets a contravention notice: disconnect within five working days, register within a month and finish authorisation within three months, or the property's supply is cut. Apply through the City's e-Services platform; the paper form is for exceptional cases and takes three to six months to produce a permission-to-install letter.

Your tariff changes when you register

To register solar on a City supply, residential customers move to or stay on the Home User tariff. For 2026/27 that tariff carries a fixed service and wires charge of R424.30 a month including VAT, with lower per-unit rates (R3.56 for the first 600 units and R4.69 above that). A household that used to pay the daily charge on the Domestic tariff should factor the higher fixed charge into any payback estimate.

Feeding in also needs an AMI smart meter, installed by the City at your cost, and metering space on the street-front boundary. In return, exported units earn the City's SSEG feed-in tariff plus a 25c/kWh incentive. If those credits regularly wipe out your account, you can join Cash for Power: residential customers are paid once a year when the surplus credit passes R1,000. Rates are set in the annual budget, so ask your installer to use the current figure.

Winter rain meets winter peak pricing

The Western Cape is a winter-rainfall region: Cape Town gets roughly three-quarters of its rain between April and October, so short, overcast winter days cut solar output just when demand rises. The City's new residential time-of-use tariff, available to AMI-metered homes with or without solar, makes this matter. In June to August, weekday peak energy (07:00 to 09:00 and 18:00 to 21:00) costs R8.98 a unit, against R3.01 off-peak.

A battery charged by day, or off-peak, and drained in those evening hours earns its keep in winter. Ask installers to model July as well as January, not only an annual average.

Mounting for the south-easter

Cape Town's summer south-easter often blows at gale force for days at a time. Ask how the racking is fixed to your rafters or purlins, and whether the layout keeps panels back from roof edges and ridges where uplift is strongest.