Power consumers become suppliers

Power consumers become suppliersCoW to bank electricity Users of green energy can now sell any excess electricity they generate to bulk users such as the City of Windhoek. OGONE TLHAGE



Windhoek residents who make use of photovoltaic solar systems to power their homes can now expect to be credited at a rate of N$1.13 per kilowatt hour of electricity fed into the City’s grid.

This follows a recent Twitter announcement by the Electricity Control Board chief executive officer that net metering had been gazetted.

Net metering can be defined as a billing mechanism that credits solar energy system owners for the electricity they add to the grid. For example, if a residential customer has a photovoltaic system on the home''s rooftop, it may generate more electricity than the home uses during daylight hours.

City of Windhoek spokesperson Lydia Amutenya says: “The net metering rules have just been promulgated. They were placed in the government gazette on 15 November 2016. The City of Windhoek will now start banking electrical energy imported from grid-connected generators at a rate of N$1.13 per kilowatt hour and the energy shall be used within a council financial year.”

This is the first of many anticipated policy interventions where electricity consumers will be paid for the power they feed into the national grid.

A plethora of policy interventions were recently announced by mines and energy minister Obeth Kandjoze at the Invest in Namibia International Conference. These included a review of the single buyer model which makes provision for state-owned utility NamPower to be the sole supplier of bulk electricity.

Kandjoze used the same opportunity to announce that many energy policies were subject to review. The White Paper on Energy of 1998 would also get a review.

Work on the electricity bill and energy regulatory authority bills is expected to be completed by March 2017, while work on the gas bill is expected to be completed by December 2017, Kandjoze announced at the conference.