Solar on your roof.
The City needs to know.
Even if you never feed power back to the grid, Cape Town requires your system to be registered with the municipality — e-Services, ECSA sign-off, and compliance documentation. There is no AMI meter to buy and no metering quotation, so nothing about how you buy electricity changes. We handle the application so you are legal, insurable, and ready if you sell.
You will not be sourcing an engineer.
The City requires professional engineer sign-off on a grid-tied system whether it exports or not — homeowners can't shortcut that. We hold it, and we hold the file until the approval letter arrives.
One short form: your name, your number and your suburb. No documents to dig out, no breaker sizes to check. We confirm what your registration will involve and reply within 48 hours.
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 the application is lodged 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 and the commissioning documents through to the approval letter and your compliance pack. With no export there is no meter to install and nothing to activate — approval is the finish line.
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 the City process in full, and who does each part.
No payment now · Response within 48 hours
R3,000 — the engineer, the application, and the follow-through
Included in the fee
- Eligibility and system validation — we confirm what the City requires for your installation before anything is submitted
- Supply and system verification — breaker rating, phase configuration and how your property is supplied
- 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 submission, assembled and lodged as non-export
- ECSA professional sign-off — coordinated with our contracted registered engineer
- City correspondence and queries — we hold the file and answer, so you don't
- Approval and compliance pack — the documented approval trail your insurer, your conveyancer and a future buyer will ask for
Costs that sit outside our fee
One cost can sit outside our fee on the non-export path, and it is not always there. The costs that complicate the export arithmetic do not apply here at all.
- Remedial electrical work — where the installation needs correction before the City will approve it. Quoted by a registered contractor, not by us.
There is no AMI meter to buy, no metering quotation, and no street-boundary meter box or cabling. Those are export requirements. If you are on prepaid, nothing about your meter changes. If you are on a credit meter, the City exchanges it for a prepaid meter at its own cost. Where remedial work is needed we establish it and price it before the balance falls due, and if the total puts you somewhere you would rather not go, we will tell you so.
How you pay
Each R1,500 is invoiced when it falls due, and settled by Visa or Mastercard card, or by Instant EFT straight from your bank. The first review is free — nothing is payable until you book.
What it costs, and what it doesn't
| WattButler — site inspection and application | R1,500 |
| WattButler — balance on City approval | R1,500 |
| City AMI bidirectional meter | Not required |
| AMI administration fee (monthly) | Not applicable |
| Credit-to-prepaid meter exchange, where applicable | At the City's cost |
Once-off cost: R3,000. Nothing recurs, and nothing is added to your monthly account.
The R6,651.90 AMI meter that makes export possible is the largest single cost on the export path, and it does not arise here. Nothing new is installed at your metering position. If you are on prepaid you carry on buying tokens exactly as you do now; if you are on a credit meter the City exchanges it for a prepaid meter at its own cost. You also stay on your existing tariff — non-export registration does not move you onto Home User.
The one variable is remedial electrical work, where an installation needs correction before the City will approve it. Where that applies, we establish it and price it before you pay the balance.
The full cost detail, and the conditions that can change it →
The R1,500 balance falls due only once the City approves your registration. 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 R1,500 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.
What clients typically ask
If you are on a credit meter, the City replaces it with a prepaid meter as part of the process, at its own cost. Either way, registration changes your paperwork rather than your bill.
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 R1,500 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 R1,500 covers the site inspection and the ECSA-registered professional, who is paid for the assessment whether or not the application succeeds.