---
title: "SSEG Registration in Johannesburg: What It Costs"
description: What City Power requires to register a home solar system, what the switch to postpaid does to your monthly bill, and what happens if you skip it.
---

[Solar Guides for Johannesburg Homeowners | CleanVolts](https://cleanvolts.co.za/guides)

# [SSEG Registration in Johannesburg: What It Costs](https://cleanvolts.co.za/guides/sseg-registration-johannesburg)

 Written by [Tony Lopes](https://cleanvolts.co.za/guides/author/tony-lopes) | Sep 28, 2026, 12:45:00 PM

If your solar system is connected to your house and your house is connected to City Power, City Power wants to know about it. The process is called SSEG registration, short for small-scale embedded generation.

Most homeowners have heard they should register. Far fewer know what it involves, and almost nobody mentions the part that matters most to your wallet: registering usually means moving from a prepaid meter to a postpaid account, and the fixed monthly charge on a postpaid account is several times higher.

This guide covers both. What City Power asks for, step by step, and what it does to your bill, in rand, at 2026/27 rates.

## **Who Has to Register**

City Power's by-laws require every connection that generates electricity to be declared to and approved by City Power. In practice that means any solar system that is connected to your house's wiring and can run alongside the grid, even if it never sends power back.

A system that is completely separate from your City Power supply is a different case. A lot of systems described as "off-grid" are not. If an inverter sits between your panels and your distribution board, and the grid is also connected to that board, assume City Power's rules apply until someone qualified tells you otherwise.

One check before anything else: make sure City Power is actually your supplier. Some parts of Johannesburg are supplied directly by Eskom, and Eskom runs its own, separate registration process. Your electricity account tells you which one you're dealing with.

## **What City Power Asks For**

City Power describes its process in stages. For a typical home system, well under the 350 kVA size where a grid impact study kicks in, it looks like this.

1. **Get a notification number.** You complete the City of Johannesburg's Electricity Supply application form. The notification number it produces is what links your property to City Power's SSEG team.
2. **Submit the SSEG application.** The solar PV application form and supporting documents go to City Power's SSEG team by email, at jozipvpower@citypower.co.za.
3. **Site inspection.** City Power arranges a visit to check the installation.
4. **Certificate and commissioning form.** A Certificate of Compliance (CoC) and a PV commissioning form are submitted for the installed system.
5. **Approval.** City Power issues an approval letter. Keep it with your CoC: it's the document a buyer's conveyancer or your insurer will want to see.
6. **Meter change.** A system that can export needs a bidirectional meter, which records power flowing in both directions.

For a new system, City Power's position is approval before installation: the application goes in and is approved before anything is connected. If your system is already on the roof, it still has to be declared. The same documents apply.

## **The Documents**

City Power's own guidance lists these:

- The completed Electricity Supply form
- A single-line diagram of the system
- The inverter datasheet
- The inverter's NRS certificate, showing it meets the grid connection standard
- Design drawings and a site plan or layout
- A maintenance procedure
- The PV commissioning form
- The Certificate of Compliance

Two requirements catch people out. City Power has said it now enforces both.

- **The CoC must come with proof of the contractor's registration** with the Department of Employment and Labour.
- **Nobody may sign on behalf of the registered person.** Documents that need the signature of a registered electrician or an ECSA-registered engineer must be signed by that person, not by the installer's office or the homeowner.

The inverter certificate is the other common problem. If your inverter model isn't approved for grid connection, the application can't be approved, however good the inverter is. That's worth knowing before you spend money on anything else.

## **What It Costs to Register**

City Power has stated that there is no registration fee, and that it doesn't charge homeowners to install solar. For a home system there's no grid impact study fee either.

The costs you will meet are elsewhere:

- **Getting the paperwork right.** If the original installer didn't leave you a CoC, a diagram or datasheets, a registered electrician has to inspect and test the system and put right anything that stops them issuing a certificate.
- **The meter and the account.** This is the big one, and it's a monthly cost, not a once-off.

## **What Registering Does to Your Monthly Bill**

Most Joburg homes are on City Power's Residential Prepaid High tariff. City Power's tariff rules say residential customers with embedded generation must be on a conventional (postpaid) tariff, and City Power converts prepaid solar customers to postpaid billing so the meter can record power in both directions.

The energy charge per unit is similar on both. The fixed monthly charge is not. At 2026/27 rates, including VAT:

| **Account type** | **Fixed charges per month** |
| --- | --- |
| Prepaid High (most homes) | R241.50 |
| Postpaid, single-phase 60A | R1,069.93 |
| Postpaid, single-phase 80A | R1,482.61 |
| Postpaid, three-phase 80A | R1,761.00 |

*City Power 2026/27 tariff schedule, effective 1 July 2026. City Power publishes excluding VAT; figures above add 15%.*

You pay these whether you buy one unit or a thousand. That's the point most solar owners miss: a good system can cut the units you buy close to zero, but it can't touch the fixed charge.

**Worked through for a typical solar home.** Take a single-phase 80A house whose solar brings its grid use down to 300 units a month. On prepaid, that month costs about R1,244. On a postpaid 80A account, the same 300 units cost about R2,477. The difference, around R1,234 a month or roughly R14,800 a year, is almost entirely fixed charges.

A few things narrow the gap, and they're worth knowing:

- **Export credits.** City Power's tariff schedule includes a residential embedded generator rate of 124.60c per unit exported, before VAT. On a system that exports a lot at midday, that offsets part of the fixed charge. Ask City Power whether export credits are active on your account before you count on them.
- **Your connection size.** Postpaid charges are set by breaker size and phase, not by property value. A house that doesn't need 80A pays less on a 60A connection.
- **How the system is set up.** Many systems were configured for load shedding in 2023. On a postpaid account, the settings that make sense are different. We explain that in [solar tariff re-optimisation](https://cleanvolts.co.za/tariff-optimisation).

The prepaid-to-postpaid rule has been pushed back on hard. In April 2026 the South African Photovoltaic Industry Association (SAPVIA) met City Power, and alternatives were discussed, including keeping prepaid meters for homes that never export. As far as we can find, nothing has changed yet. If it does, we'll update this guide.

## **What Happens If You Don't Register**

Given those numbers, it's easy to see why so many Joburg systems have never been registered. It's still not a decision to make without knowing what you're taking on.

- **City Power can act on it.** Its by-laws require generation to be declared and approved, and an undeclared connection can be disconnected.
- **Selling the house.** A buyer's conveyancer will ask for the CoC, and increasingly for proof of SSEG approval. Sorting both out in the middle of a transfer is slower and more stressful than doing it now.
- **Making an insurance claim.** After a fire or storm, an insurer may ask whether the installation was certified and approved. Missing paperwork can complicate the claim.
- **Your own duty.** Registration and safety are separate things, but they meet at the CoC. As the user of the installation, you're responsible for its safety and for having a valid CoC for it. We cover that in [your legal duty as a solar system owner](https://cleanvolts.co.za/guides/solar-owner-legal-responsibility).

What we won't do is tell you to just not register. The right order is: find out where your system stands, work out what registration would cost you each month, and then decide with the numbers in front of you.

## **What to Do This Week**

1. **Check your supplier.** Your account says City Power or Eskom.
2. **Look for an approval letter or reference number** from City Power. If you can't find one, assume the system isn't registered.
3. **Find your CoC**, and check it covers the solar system and battery, not just the house before they went in.
4. **Write down your inverter's make and model** from the unit's label, and check whether you have its datasheet and NRS certificate.
5. **Check your main breaker size** on your distribution board, or ask whoever checks your system. That number decides which fixed charge applies to you.

City Power's SSEG team can be reached at jozipvpower@citypower.co.za, on WhatsApp at 083 291 6663, or on 011 490 7484.

## **How We Help**

We check existing solar systems across Blairgowrie, Linden, Randburg, Ferndale, Northcliff, Fairland, Emmarentia, Greenside, Parkhurst and the suburbs around them. A Health Check tells you whether your system is registered, what's missing from the paperwork, and what registration would do to your bill for your connection size.

If you decide to register, we assemble the application pack, coordinate with City Power and follow it through to the approval letter. Anything that needs a registered person, including the CoC and the signatures on the technical documents, is done by a registered electrical contractor you contract directly, under their own registration. You know exactly who signed what.

## **Book a Health Check**

Book a Health Check and find out where your system stands before City Power, a buyer or an insurer asks. [Book a Health Check](https://cleanvolts.co.za/book-an-audit).

[View full post](https://cleanvolts.co.za/guides/sseg-registration-johannesburg)

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