There was a sense among participants that they might not even recognise any occurrence of curtailment, and one asked, “So would you even know if it was happening with your own solar system?” Indeed, most participants had little understanding of how it might be apparent to them. As a participant remarked, “if there’s not really a clear way of seeing if there’s curtailment happening, then I can see that might be a problem with people thinking that their system is not functioning properly”. Participants’ concerns about a lack of visibility of curtailment events related to expectations of transparency that are discussed in Section 5.4.
5.3 Perceived impacts of curtailment 5.3.2 Potential disruption of the energy transition Participants shared broad concerns about the impact of curtailment on the ongoing adoption of D-PV in SA. Participants expressed that curtailment could be “off-putting” to households that are considering purchasing D-PV systems, echoing the ‘stigma’ that is associated with curtailment [22]. The potential for curtailment was seen to add another layer of technical and economic complexity: "For me, the whole issue of curtailment just means that it’s another budgetary item that’s a little bit up in the air. You don’t know how much money you’re going to get back.” This reflects the concerns about impacts on the economic viability of purchasing a D-PV system mentioned above, with curtailment making it more difficult for prospective purchasers to develop a full view of the costs and benefits [25]. There was a broad view that D-PV adoption is to be lauded and encouraged, and that the curtailment of exports could form the basis of negative perceptions or misconceptions of D-PV. Some participants pointed out that such negative perceptions might persist even if curtailment has relatively minor impacts for D-PV owners in practice and underlined the importance of transparency about the real impacts of curtailment in order to prevent misconceptions. There was also a concern raised some participants that the issue of curtailment might be deliberately used by vested interests to deter D-PV adoption: “I guess that's my first thought […] people who aren't on the solar bandwagon and how they will spread it to other people.” 5.3.3 Distribution of the impacts of curtailment Most participants told us that they think that the impacts of curtailment should be “fair”, but there were contrasting views on what constitutes fair or equitable distribution of impacts in this context. There was a suggestion that the curtailment of D-PV exports should be evenly distributed across populations, as opposed to affecting “certain people that are having it all the time.” However, there was a broader recognition that factors such as location and system size mean that households may contribute to and experience curtailment differently. As such, there was general acceptance that there would be unevenness in the distribution of the impacts of curtailment. •
Spatial distribution
Participants tended to be of the view that new housing developments in densely populated areas were more likely to be curtailed as they had a higher rate of D-PV installed. In contrast, rural households were typically perceived as having a lower risk of being curtailed due to smaller populations and fewer D-PV owners on a given line: “We live rurally. I’m thinking on the lines in the city, it’s probably gonna happen more because in a street of 20 houses, you might have 10 houses with it. Whereas in my street of 20 houses, I think we’re the only ones who have it”. Interestingly, these perceptions contrast with findings that suggest that remote rural locations on a radial feeder might experience greater levels of curtailment than urban areas [23].
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