Why South African Government is Delaying the Use of Solar Energy in Farms

Many South African farmers are dissatisfied with the state of affairs of their agribusiness. These farmers, in the move to prevent ‘load shedding’ (power outages) in farms, went ahead to invest heavily in solar panel installation in their farms.

Since the power outage issues, farmers decided to invest in solar systems to not only support their farms but to also channel what is left into the electric grid. Dr. Requier Wait, Head of Economics & Trade at Agric South Africa said that farmers can generate up to 1400MW of electricity; enough power to sustain a city.

In recent time, South Africa has been shedding quite a lot of load because of mismanagement in their power sector. This is the problem these farmers seek to solve but NERSA is yet to approve it. National Energy Regulator of South Africa (NERSA) says the cause of the delay is as a result of the registration process.

The farmers applied a year ago for registration and after investing about R8 million into these solar systems, they are still not allowed to use it.

In 2006, the Electricity Regulations Act of South Africa permitted licensing and registration of generation facilities which was finally approved by NERSA in 2018. Till date, Small Scale Embedded Generators are yet to be registered. This delay however, is costing farmers a lot of money because they still have to pay heavily to offset electricity bills to ESKOM.

HOD for Electricity, Licensing, and Dispute Resolution at NERSA , Dennis Seemela said that all processes must go according to the law before registrations can be approved.

When these solar systems are approved, let’s hope that load shedding in South Africa will be solved. Other countries in Africa can also adopt this model of supporting the power sector.