Cape Town · Solar export registration

Sell your extra solar power to the City. We'll sort the paperwork.

The City of Cape Town credits R1.33 for every kWh your solar sends back, straight onto your municipal bill. But only once your system's registered and on the City's two-way meter (an AMI meter). We get you registered, start to finish.

Check if your home qualifies

Free  ·  No payment now  ·  We reply within one business day

Cape Town home with rooftop solar panels glowing in the evening light, Table Mountain faint in the distance
~R1,000credited in December on our co-founder's own 10kW system
How it works

You won't need to find an engineer.

The City needs a registered engineer to sign off your system, and there's no shortcut around that. The meter installation also stalls unless someone keeps chasing it. We handle the first and chase the second.

Two questions: your system size, and who bills you for electricity. No documents to dig out, no breaker sizes to check. We confirm whether your property qualifies and what it will involve, and reply within one business day.

We come to you. We photograph the installation to the standard the engineer needs — inverter markings, DB board, isolators, earthing, array — and put the ECSA-registered professional in place. Finding that engineer independently is where most homeowner attempts stall. You are not sourcing one, briefing one, or explaining your inverter to anyone.

Once permission to install is granted, the City begins writing to you directly as the account holder. Forward those to us and the City redirects to us from there. We handle the queries, the commissioning documents, the AMI meter process and activation.

None of this is difficult on its own. It is long, particular, and easy to stall on once. That is the part we take. See all twelve City steps, and who does each one.

Check if your home qualifies

No payment now  ·  We reply within one business day

Your missed credits

How much credit is your roof missing out on?

Use your system size and installation month for a directional estimate. Your actual export depends on generation, orientation, battery behaviour and how much solar you use at home.

Approval typically takes 6–12 weeks.Credits begin only after approval, metering and connection. Earlier exports are not credited retrospectively.
Estimated export~440 kWh/month
Potential monthly credit~R585
Potential credits since installation~R7,020

Have that ~R7,020 checked properly.Check if your home qualifies

Estimate uses 55 kWh of monthly export per installed kW and the 2026/27 non-VAT residential rate of R1.3298/kWh. It is not a quote or guarantee.

Check if your home qualifies
Why now
Every month you're not registered is solar value
you can't get back later.

The highest-yield months run November to February. A 10kW system earns roughly R1,000 a month across them, against about R730 averaged over the year.

Approval and connection take 6–12 weeks from a complete application. An application started in August is exporting for all four of those months. One started in November is exporting for the last of them, if that. The difference is not three months of credits — it is most of a peak season, and the next one is a year away.

The feed-in tariff and the SSEG incentive remain subject to annual Council review.

Our own system · Cape Town
"December was the month it clicked. Roughly a thousand rand credited, in the middle of summer, from surplus we weren't using anyway. It won't be that every month — but it made the whole thing feel finished."
Co-founder, Grid Okes · ~10kW system · Registered 2025
~R1,000
Credited · December
10kW
System size

Summer months generate roughly 35–40% above the annual average. Across a full year, a system this size averages closer to R730 a month. This is our co-founder's own registration, completed before we began taking clients. We opened to clients in June 2026 and have four Cape Town registrations under way.

What we charge

R4,000 covers the engineer, the paperwork and the follow-up with the City.

What's included

  • Eligibility and inverter validation — we confirm your inverter is on the City's approved list before anything is submitted
  • Supply and MEC verification — breaker rating, phase configuration and overhead-supply check
  • On-site documentation visit — we come to the property and photograph the installation to the engineer's standard
  • Application preparation and submission — the full City SSEG export submission, assembled and lodged
  • ECSA professional sign-off — coordinated with our contracted registered engineer
  • City correspondence and queries — we hold the file and answer, so you don't
  • Metering and activation tracking — through to meter installation and your first credited month
  • Tariff migration guidance — the Home User move, and your Time-of-Use position

What's not in our fee

Three costs are set by the City and your existing installation, not by us. We establish all three before you commit to anything.

  • City AMI bidirectional meter — quoted and charged directly by the City. Required for any exporting home.
  • Street-boundary meter box or cabling — where the existing metering position doesn't meet the City's requirements. This is the variable that most often changes the arithmetic.
  • Remedial electrical work — where the installation needs correction before the City will approve it.

We price these into your assessment before you pay the balance. If the total puts your payback period somewhere you'd rather not go, we will tell you so and you will not proceed. We would rather lose the application than register a home that shouldn't have been registered.

R2,000 on bookingR2,000 once the City issues your metering quotationBalance is only due if your application succeeds

How you pay

Each R2,000 is invoiced when it falls due, and settled by Visa or Mastercard card, or by Instant EFT straight from your bank. The eligibility check is free — nothing is payable until you book.

The numbers

What it costs, and what you get back

Upfront cost, paid once

R10,651.90

Everything you pay to get a standard single-phase home registered and exporting.

How we get to R10,651.90
City two-way meter (AMI meter), incl. VATQuoted and charged directly by the CityR6,651.90
Grid Okes, on bookingSite inspection, engineer and applicationR2,000
Grid Okes, once the City issues your metering quotationOnly due if your application gets that farR2,000
Total, once-offR10,651.90

Every month after that

~R724 back on your bill

Estimated net credit for a 10kW system, after the City's monthly meter fee.

How we get to ~R724
Export credit, 2026/27 residential rateWhat the City credits for each kWh you send backR1.33 / kWh
Estimated monthly credit, 10kW systemAbout 550 kWh exported a month × R1.33~R731
AMI meter administration feeCharged monthly by the City−R7
Net credit, per month~R724

This is a yearly average. Summer months run higher: our own 10kW system was credited about R1,000 in December.

Pays for itself in about fifteen months. R10,651.90 upfront, recovered at roughly R724 a month.

The meter is a City requirement for any registered export system, not a Grid Okes charge — you pay it whichever way the application is submitted. It is also the only route onto the City's residential Time-of-Use tariff, which lets a household with a battery buy at off-peak rates instead of peak ones. We tell you whether that is worth doing for your property.

Some properties need a compliant street-boundary meter box or cabling before the City will connect. Where that applies, we establish it and price it before you pay the balance.

The R2,000 balance falls due only when the City issues your metering quotation. If a rejection is within our control — documentation, submission, or a compliance issue our screening should have caught — it is never invoiced, and refunded if you have already paid it. The first R2,000 has paid the site visit and the ECSA professional, who is paid for the assessment and not for the outcome. Property-specific requirements and the City's own approval decisions sit outside that.

Questions

What people usually ask

A Certificate of Compliance is not the same as City SSEG approval. If you have a commissioning approval letter and export credits already appear on your municipal statement, the process is complete. If not, we can check your status before you pay anything.
Our fee is R4,000, split into two payments of R2,000. The first R2,000 books your site inspection — we visit, document the installation, and engage the ECSA-registered professional. The engineer is paid for the assessment, not for the outcome, so that first payment stands either way — it has bought you a site visit and a professional's assessment of your system. The remaining R2,000 is due only once the City issues your metering quotation. Each invoice can be settled by Visa or Mastercard card, or by Instant EFT from your bank. The eligibility check on this page is free and does not commit you to proceed.
Yes. Every export customer needs a City-installed bi-directional AMI meter, currently R6,651.90 including VAT, paid for by the property owner. A compliant street-boundary meter box, cabling changes or other remedial electrical work can add cost. We surface known requirements as early as possible, but the City and relevant contractors issue their own quotations. Every conditional cost is set out in full here.
Yes, but the account changes. Export customers move to a billed Home User SSEG account with an AMI meter, so there are no more tokens to buy and enter. Credits are then applied monthly against your consolidated municipal account — electricity, rates, water and solid waste.

If your property is valued at R1 million or more you are already billed on Home User, and its R424.30 monthly fixed charge is already on your statement. Below that threshold you would be moving onto it, which is a real change to your bill — the fixed charge is higher and the per-unit rate lower, so whether you come out ahead depends on how much you use. We model both before you commit.
The City introduced an opt-in residential Time-of-Use tariff on 1 July 2026. It charges separately for peak, standard and off-peak periods rather than a single flat rate, and it requires the same AMI meter your export registration installs.

It suits households with battery storage that can shift consumption out of peak periods. It suits a home without a battery far less, and the tariff carries no free basic electricity allocation. The City moves nobody across automatically — it takes a written request.

We model both tariffs against your property during the assessment and tell you which is better for you. If Time-of-Use is the answer, we submit the request. Time-of-Use feed-in rates are not yet in service; the City has said they will follow once its systems have been tested, so export credits are at the standard rate either way.
A complete application typically takes 6–12 weeks through approval, metering and connection, but City timelines and property-specific work can extend this. We track the file and respond to queries; we do not promise a date controlled by the City. See the twelve steps that make up those weeks.
Mostly not. We come to the property and photograph the installation ourselves, so the engineer's evidence does not depend on your installer being responsive. The one thing we need from you is your inverter and panel spec sheets, and those are usually already in your installation handover pack — we approach your installer only if something is missing. Some properties do need remedial work before approval. We tell you what is needed and manage the communication either way.
Buyers and conveyancers increasingly ask for evidence that grid-tied solar is authorised. Completing the City process gives you a documented approval trail and reduces the risk of registration paperwork delaying a future sale.
Most rejections are correctable. Missing documents and technical mismatches usually are, and we explain the reason and what remediation requires.

If the rejection was caused by something within our control — documentation, submission, or a compliance issue our screening should have caught — you are not invoiced for the R2,000 balance, and we refund it if you have already paid.

If it was caused by the property itself, we tell you plainly what the City requires and what it is likely to cost. The first R2,000 covers the site inspection and the ECSA-registered professional, who is paid for the assessment whether or not the application succeeds.
No. Grid Okes is an independent service by Acre Energy (Pty) Ltd. We prepare and manage applications through the City's official process and coordinate a contracted ECSA professional, but the City makes the approval and metering decisions.