Solar households get reprieve as Eskom delays deadline

2026-03-27 - 04:30

There is light at the end of the tunnel for households and businesses with hybrid and rooftop solar power systems under 100kWp after Eskom extended its free registration period from 31 March to 30 September following months of uncertainty and threats of fines and power cuts. Energy expert Chris Yelland isn’t surprised Eskom extended the deadline dates for registration. Eskom extends solar registration deadline to September “Eskom has been trying to get people to register their solar PV battery systems. The reason why they want to do this is purely commercial,” said Yelland. “They want to make more money from people. When people go onto solar PV, they are required to go onto a new tariff called the home flex tariff, which has a very high fixed cost every month. “It’s also what they call a time of use tariff, as Eskom wants to convert people from the existing tariff to the new tariff.” Yelland said while Eskom has been sending threatening letters to customers, saying that “if they didn’t register by a certain deadline, they would be cut off or fined, they had very weak legal grounds to do this”. Eskom sending threatening letters to customers – Yelland He said solar PV’s had battery storage at various levels which included residential, commercial, manufacturing, industrial and agricultural, and were part of private sector procurements that have made a big impact on reducing the load shedding, reducing the demand on the Eskom generation. “This has relieved a lot of the burden on Eskom. In addition, there are also public procurements for the renewable energy IPP [independent power producers] programme,” he said. ALSO READ: Eskom halts fines on unregistered solar systems