A new tariff plan with electricity net-billing introduced by Eskom in the past year provides little incentive for households to feed power back into the grid but offers potential cost savings when charging batteries outside peak hours. The Homeflex tariff was one of several changes that Eskom proposed for electricity tariffs about a year and a half ago. The utility sent its proposals to the National Energy Regulator of South Africa (Nersa) in August 2022.
Among the proposals that captured most of the public’s attention were substantially increased network capacity charges detrimental to users who consume very little electricity — such as grid-tied solar users. Eskom argued this was necessary because those with grid-tied solar and batteries were effectively paying subsidised tariffs by those without their own power. However, Nersa disagreed with Eskom’s proposals, except for the introduction of the Homeflex tariffs, which Eskom published in its Eskom previously told MyBroadband that this tariff would be particularly appealing to solar power user