Battery prices have plummeted in South Africa

richjdavies said:
Just to check are we using "," as decimal now? Not sure you can buy 2,560kWh for that price, maybe 2.6kWh though!

Is it not worth mentioning cycles a bit more in the table. E. G. Rand per kwh usable (I. E. 30% for gel? Vs 80% for lithium? And another row per cycle... I. E. It's probably dropped way under R1 per kwh cycled now?)

Finally BTW. I think it's important to be telling people /businesses that it is now worth using batteries to move load from off peak to peak times (if you're on time of use!)
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If one sets up Windows (which I do often) it defaults to , for a decimal point. I change it to . as part of my setup process as it can cause issues with Excel formulas and such.

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supersunbird said:
If one sets up Windows (which I do often) it defaults to , for a decimal point. I change it to . as part of my setup process.

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I am aware of the Microsoft localisation features...

The problem is that mybb across every other article and even the table itself adopts US/UK number styling in every other part.

I have never see it say the petrol price is up R1,40 this month or battery prices are down 35,6%.

So... I'm not trying to knock localisation. This is not it. This is someone writing the article not knowing that it is 2,600Wh (that costs R5, 400) not 2,600*k*Wh in a battery

It's the k that is likely wrong!
 
1am7h30n3 said:
Sure it depends on the area, etc. For me it's not common, but it certainly happens probably at least once a year? The worst I can remember was when it was off for 5-8 days a time twice within 3 months. The internet and water keeps going, I'm sure that depends on exactly where the fault is and how large of an area it affects, but in my area I can get cellphone signal during most power failures, so the internet stays on, water I'm not sure how/why, but the extended water failures don't seem to coincide with extended power failures that I experience.

It's not a contrived example, these are just my personal experiences and from discussions with work colleagues, some of whom have battery backup systems without generators or solar and suffer these exact issues.

And no, having power during a 5 day outage isn't "so what", it's incredibly useful to have your fridges powered on at the very least.
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So you'd if they don't have a generator already what do they currently do, lump it? Or have these 5 day outages just started...

Using a generator to (at its optimum efficiency) charge batteries then trickle use that energy from an inverter is a very sensible thing to do. So add those batteries to that existing genny backup! (and of course then add the solar that you'd be crazy not to add :))

But yeh I get the general point. Adding batteries (and the associated inverter) doesn't really help (unless you have constant short outages!). But once you have that equipment adding solar is a small thing.

It's basically just the panels...

Regularly offline, large load= Genny (if critical genny + UPS)

irregularly offline = nothing or genny

Batteries on their own don't suit either. As still even with dropping prices the inverter is costly.
 
The Trutherizer said:
1737533387292.png

Where did you go to school?
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My issue is not the use of comma or . for decimal symbol.
My issue is with using space for digit grouping.
Using space makes parsing tricky and overly complex for computer ingestion.

Using spaces delimiter decision was made by ZA idiots with BA degree no computer experience.

Q. Does any computer language uses spaces or comma internally for programming?
see https://docs.python.org/3/tutorial/floatingpoint.html
They use "." for programming.
All the apps I've written/seen have pi as 3.141592653589793 for programming.
 
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The Trutherizer said:
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Where did you go to school?
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The comma was adopted when South Africa moved over to the metric system. The process was initiated in 1967 and concluded in 1974. If someone finished school before 1974 there is a chance they may have learned using the decimal point instead.

Back on topic. On black Friday a bought a portable Ecoflow unit for about one third of the price they were going for during load shedding. It gives the impression that there was a lot of price gouging happening back then.
 
So there is common usage rules when it comes to language and grammar. I went and look at one of the biggest companies in SA usage:

Screenshot_20250122_110345_Chrome.jpg

Since I am on my phone, I had to zoom in:Screenshot_20250122_110327_Chrome.jpg

Yes, they use the point for decimal. This is standard practice by all the big companies in South Africa.
 
Prices on Sunsynk batteries?

I have a 5.32kWh or 5,32kWh and need to add another one.
Can't mix batteries so need a Sunsynk.
 
LCBXX said:
infinitygroupcompanies.co.za

51.2V 300Ah Lithium Ion Battery - 15KWH - Up to 15 in Parallel - LIMITED PROMOTION - Infinity Group Companies (Pty) Ltd.

Infinity 51.2V 300Ah 15kWh LiFePO4 Battery Mobile ESS With Active Balancer Mobile Home Energy Storage System Supports US/ EU standards Built-in active balancer module+external physical switch. Built-in professional LiFePO4 temperature-sensitive Fire Extinguisher. 100% Grade A+ cells, the real...
infinitygroupcompanies.co.za infinitygroupcompanies.co.za
Was R18,500 until 1 Jan 2025
Click to expand...
So it went up? But still 300ah for R22k is really good
 
SauRoNZA said:
And yet somehow AA and AAA alkaline or rechargeables are more expensive.
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The cost to run an entry level toy RC car is almost half of the actual car..

My kids use their pocket money for batteries for their RC toys, and unfortunately rechargeable batteries don't work very well
 
The_MAC said:
The cost to run an entry level toy RC car is almost half of the actual car..

My kids use their pocket money for batteries for their RC toys, and unfortunately rechargeable batteries don't work very well
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You do get those extreme high capacity high amps rechargeables, but then they are way more pricey which makes buying alkaline in bulk more sensible.
 
The_MAC said:
The cost to run an entry level toy RC car is almost half of the actual car..

My kids use their pocket money for batteries for their RC toys, and unfortunately rechargeable batteries don't work very well
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Not the right RC cars if they run off AA and AAA batteries :)
 
The_MAC said:
I'm not going down the RC rabbit hole, been there done that..

It's a money pit, so entry-level RC's FTW
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It's a fun... Expensive hobby, sold all mine about 5/6 years ago to an old forumite
 
The_MAC said:
The cost to run an entry level toy RC car is almost half of the actual car..

My kids use their pocket money for batteries for their RC toys, and unfortunately rechargeable batteries don't work very well
Click to expand...
You get 1.5V AA/AAA lithium rechargeables now fyi.
 
Yep because suppliers stocked up on batteries for massive profits back when load shedding was a daily thing. So now they are trying to get rid of their batteries that's been sitting on shelves for 6+ months whilst slowly deteriorating.
 
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