How Eskom's Homeflex tariff may limit solar energy access for low-income South Africans

ESKOM'S decision to force many solar users to move onto what it calls the Homeflex tariff, at a cost of R1,208, could deter South Africans from moving to sun power, especially those with limited means.

Eskom's Homeflex tariff aims to encourage residential customers to shift energy consumption to off-peak hours by making power more expensive during peak demand periods. It requires registering a system installation with Eskom. 

The need to register solar systems is not new, said Patrick Narbel, CTO at GoSolr, and is intended to ensure that installations are of a high enough quality that they don’t cause threats to employees working on the power infrastructure.  

However, Narbel explained that users are being forced to move to the Homeflex tariff. This could make solar inaccessible to a portion of the population, typically those with limited means, he said. “We believe that this should be voluntary.”  

Narbel said Eskom was charging R1 ,08 to move, although “it is unclear what cost Eskom occurs when processing such a request”. However, he noted out that Eskom has “come to the party and voided costs for the system to be registered before March 2026”. 

“The worry overall is that these changes may be pushed not to ensure better install quality and good utilisation of the electricity infrastructure but to protect revenues by weakening how attractive solar solutions are,” he said.  

“This is a game where South Africans will lose, as the new tariff increases raise costs for lower-income users in favour of higher-income users,” said Narbel.  

Crown Prince Adil Nchabeleng, independent energy expert, has estimated that less than 1% of households have solar, making the point that most subsidies have gone to big businesses and not households.

“The uptake was not as anticipated… the whole scheme was not targeted at minimum households like ordinary poor households, like your poor households,” says Nchabeleng. “Treasury could have done a better job…. It was an elitist programme,” Nchabeleng has previously said. 

Nchabeleng stated that an upfront investment is exorbitantly expensive as a two-bedroom home would require at least R100,000 in investment. This does not benefit the indigent, he noted.  

Narbel added that the benefit of being able to feed excess power back to the grid attractive rates under Homeflex is currently being mitigated, as Eskom is not ready to implement it. 

“Overall, we are supportive of the compliance process yet openly question whether Eskom has the necessary systems in place to efficiently process them,” Narbel said.

Among the challenges that Narbel highlighted was that people registering directly with Eskom had to submit applications via email “and it is not uncommon for us to have to resubmit applications as these cannot be located ‘on the system’.” 

Eskom also has requirements that differ from those of other municipalities, said Narbel. “We look forward to a national standard that sets well-defined criteria on how solar PV systems are installed, instead of having to navigate a myriad of requirements that tend to change over time,” he said.