The North-Facing Neighbours started as a small group of South African homeowners and long-term renters comparing notes during load-shedding. Some had already installed inverters and batteries; others were still trying to work out whether a north-facing roof in Johannesburg would justify the cost. What they had in common was the slow, often frustrating work of reading municipal bills, measuring roof space, comparing inverter quotes, and decoding battery data sheets.
Roof to Meter grew out of those conversations. The site is an informational explainer resource for people evaluating grid-tied and hybrid solar electricity systems in South African homes. It is written from the perspective of neighbours who have had to learn the terminology, rules and arithmetic because the decisions matter: a badly understood inverter setting can affect backup power during outages, and a vague quote can hide important compliance work.
The guiding idea is simple. Before you choose panels, batteries or an inverter, you should be able to connect your own roof orientation, electricity consumption and municipal tariff structure to the proposal in front of you. The site organises this into seven working areas: System Architectures, System Sizing and Yield, Regulatory Compliance and Metering, Component Comparisons and Selection, Proposal and Quote Evaluation, Maintenance, Monitoring and Warranty, and Financial Reasoning and Scenarios.
Articles in System Architectures explain how grid-tied, hybrid, battery-ready and grid-backup configurations use solar, battery and municipal power in normal and load-shedding conditions. System Sizing and Yield covers consumption profiling, load lists, solar array yield, battery backup sizing, and inverter sizing. Regulatory Compliance and Metering unpacks municipal SSEG applications, embedded generation tariffs and fees, NRS 097-2-1 and SANS 10142-1 obligations, and meter compatibility.
Component Comparisons and Selection compares battery chemistry and cycle life, inverter topology and hybrid architecture, solar module efficiency and temperature coefficients, and inverter certification for component families. Proposal and Quote Evaluation gives readers a way to normalise line items, verify production estimates, spot warranty red flags, and understand structural and electrical prerequisites. Maintenance, Monitoring and Warranty covers panel cleaning, battery health, monitoring metrics, and compliance document retention. Financial Reasoning and Scenarios explains self-consumption, feed-in credit logic, payback period, tariff escalation, and example scenarios with clearly labelled assumptions.
The site speaks to South African conditions: municipal electricity bills, load-shedding schedules, NRS 097-2-1 inverter lists, SANS 10142-1 electrical work, prepaid and smart meter compatibility, and the reality that grid-tied work requires a qualified contractor and a Certificate of Compliance. The explanations stay educational and evergreen so a homeowner can sit with a quote, a roof plan or a battery specification and ask better questions.