Generator vs backup battery price comparison

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Goodbye load-shedding — generator vs battery backup pricing comparison

A MyBroadband analysis reveals that generators are cheaper than battery backup systems, but buyers should consider the fuel costs associated with running them.

MyBroadband compared the price of buying a generator to the cost of installing a backup battery system designed to last through bouts of up to Stage 4 load-shedding with a load of 800W.
 
Excluding costs of fuel and maintenance is a false economy, load shedding 3 times a day at the rate of fuel consumption of the 2.8kv Mac is around 7 litres if you are load shed 3 times a day. At todays petrol price thats about 160 rand. So if we go through a week of stage 4, you are looking at a shade over a thousand rand, excluding maintenance.

I'd say that can become pretty expensive pretty quick ..
 
jetlee said:
Excluding costs of fuel and maintenance is a false economy, load shedding 3 times a day at the rate of fuel consumption of the 2.8kv Mac is around 7 litres if you are load shed 3 times a day. At todays petrol price thats about 160 rand. So if we go through a week of stage 4, you are looking at a shade over a thousand rand, excluding maintenance.

I'd say that can become pretty expensive pretty quick ..
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Maintenance can be as cheap as R150, but the more you use it, the more you need to service it. Also remember it's not only fuel it's oil as well that needs to be changed every 50 hours on the service, plus you need to make sure that you've got it running more than 3 meters from any doors and windows, plus you need to run it every so often to make sure it's still working, plus you need to run it in for a few minutes before plugging things in to make sure the voltages stablise.
They are also loud and smelly.
 
Bought the Ryobi RG-1280I's slightly bigger brother not too long ago - apart from the geyser and oven it powers the house without difficulty. It's a little noisy but so what - can't hardly hear it with the tv on.

The nice thing about a generator is it will keep powering the house as long as I keep filling up the tank - great for those times when our infrastructure doesn't appreciate being treated like a light switch.
 
I'd be interested to hear feedback on how quiet those inverter generators are .. I've been considering the cost of going completely off grid, and using something like that in extreme circumstances where we get like 4 days of storm cloud cover in a row ..
 
There is a place for both. Use the batteries for loadshedding and get the generator out for longer outages.
 
bwana said:
Bought the Ryobi RG-1280I's slightly bigger brother not too long ago - apart from the geyser and oven it powers the house without difficulty. It's a little noisy but so what - can't hardly hear it with the tv on.

The nice thing about a generator is it will keep powering the house as long as I keep filling up the tank - great for those times when our infrastructure doesn't appreciate being treated like a light switch.
Click to expand...
True and why my generator is the backup, but remember you do need to stop everything to fill it up, you should never fill up the generator while it's running, so you will need to stop everything and allow it to cool so it would be about 30 minutes or so between top ups.
Also remember that if you've run the generator for 50 hours you will need to service it, if it is a key start generator you also need to make sure the little 7ah battery is okay.
 
jetlee said:
I'd be interested to hear feedback on how quiet those inverter generators are .. I've been considering the cost of going completely off grid, and using something like that in extreme circumstances where we get like 4 days of storm cloud cover in a row ..
Click to expand...
They're not silent but they are far quieter than a conventional generator, some are a little louder than a car engine
 
jetlee said:
I'd be interested to hear feedback on how quiet those inverter generators are .. I've been considering the cost of going completely off grid, and using something like that in extreme circumstances where we get like 4 days of storm cloud cover in a row ..
Click to expand...
Well a 2 stroke normal generator sounded like an old 50cc motor bike, the 4 stroke generator was quieter then a 4 stroke lawnmower. The inverter one a friend has is about the sound of an idling car but they weren't pushing it to it's full 80% load.
 
Both systems have their pros and cons...

I've had a 1kvA inverter and 2.4kWh battery for 7 years now. I think the main advantage is convinience... it is essentially a UPS, so there is no "prep" for loadsheeding - internet stays on, lights stay on, TV stays on and PC stays on. It also technically has running costs - I replaced the lead acid batteries after 5 years with a lithium battery (R7500). So the running cost was R1500 per year.
 
Lupus said:
True and why my generator is the backup, but remember you do need to stop everything to fill it up, you should never fill up the generator while it's running, so you will need to stop everything and allow it to cool so it would be about 30 minutes or so between top ups.
Also remember that if you've run the generator for 50 hours you will need to service it, if it is a key start generator you also need to make sure the little 7ah battery is okay.
Click to expand...
Manual says 100 hours though
 
Lupus said:
Maintenance can be as cheap as R150, but the more you use it, the more you need to service it. Also remember it's not only fuel it's oil as well that needs to be changed every 50 hours on the service, plus you need to make sure that you've got it running more than 3 meters from any doors and windows, plus you need to run it every so often to make sure it's still working, plus you need to run it in for a few minutes before plugging things in to make sure the voltages stablise.
They are also loud and smelly.
Click to expand...
100% .. using the stage 4 for a week example .. you'd be servicing it roughly once a week..
 
Jislaaik, the price has gone up. The more loadshedding, the more demand, the higher the price.
 
jetlee said:
100% .. using the stage 4 for a week example .. you'd be servicing it roughly once a week..
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So you'd be one of those that fires up the generator as soon as the power goes out then? I always find it comical how many people do that.
 
xumwun said:
Manual says 100 hours though
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Some say 50, though this also takes into account that a few manuals say you need to do your first maintenance at 20 hours, than it's 50 hours for the next and than it's 100 after that.
 
GMAN03 said:
So you'd be one of those that fires up the generator as soon as the power goes out then? I always find it comical how many people do that.
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People working from home?
 
deweyzeph said:
How about the cost of pissing off your neighbours with your stinky noisy generator? For the love of all that is holy, get an inverter rather. Your neighbours will thank you.
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Live in a house, a few generators start up during shedding, they are far enough away from each other that it's not anymore annoying than leaf blowers.
 
jetlee said:
I'd be interested to hear feedback on how quiet those inverter generators are ..
Click to expand...
Noisy as hell but unlike my old AVR generators it's a constant noise regardless of the load.
xumwun said:
There is a place for both. Use the batteries for loadshedding and get the generator out for longer outages.
Click to expand...
Not really viable. Both are costly endeavours and having long term power available when necessary won the day.
Lupus said:
True and why my generator is the backup, but remember you do need to stop everything to fill it up, you should never fill up the generator while it's running, so you will need to stop everything and allow it to cool so it would be about 30 minutes or so between top ups.
Click to expand...
30 minutes? Switch off, refuel, restart.
 
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