Households that install solar can immediately start saving

Daniel Puchert

Daniel Puchert

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Solar power cheaper than Eskom — even using loans

South Africans who install solar power can immediately start saving money, even when paying off their system using an additional facility on their home bond or a low-interest solar loan.

Many people don't have the savings or cash on hand to buy a solar power system outright. Pricing typically starts at well above R50,000 for small households that want to self-generate and have at least two hours of battery backup throughout the day.
 
My current electricity bill is about R2400 pm (Cape Town).

I have a 3 bedroom house. Electric stove/oven and normal electric geyser. 3 people.

About how much will I need to spend to go mostly off grid (not entirely) and what will my electricity bill be?

We have really noticed the electricity increase this year so considering going off grid. Are prices of solar coming down now that there is less demand (no load shedding)?
 
Brawler said:
My current electricity bill is about R2400 pm (Cape Town).

I have a 3 bedroom house. Electric stove/oven and normal electric geyser. 3 people.

About how much will I need to spend to go mostly off grid (not entirely) and what will my electricity bill be?

We have really noticed the electricity increase this year so considering going off grid. Are prices of solar coming down now that there is less demand (no load shedding)?
Click to expand...

Off-grid (or nearly off-grid) is going to be expensive.

You can probably get the majority of your stuff onto solar with grid backup for R150k (thumbsuck figure).
 
Yeah not that easy.
I know many people with big solar systems and only one saves money or rather close to break even. It is a retired couple sitting at home mostly. Their geyser is on only in the day and they do most things during the day. Also only use an Air fryer and small induction stove.
The rest that carry on as normal and are not at home during most of the day when the sun is shining, saves a 100 or two a month on their electricity. Will never get their money for the installation back.
 
ToxicBunny said:
Off-grid (or nearly off-grid) is going to be expensive.

You can probably get the majority of your stuff onto solar with grid backup for R150k (thumbsuck figure).
Click to expand...
Sounds about right.

I did it for R150k last year and there are large savings to be had, especially on solar panels, now v.s. this time last year so perhaps R15-R20k cheaper.
 
Jean Claude Vaaldamme said:
Yeah not that easy.
I know many people with big solar systems and only one saves money or rather close to break even. It is a retired couple sitting at home mostly. Their geyser is on only in the day and they do most things during the day. Also only use an Air fryer and small induction stove.
The rest that carry on as normal and are not at home during most of the day when the sun is shining, saves a 100 or two a month on their electricity. Will never get their money for the installation back.
Click to expand...
Those that aren't benefitting didn't do a proper energy audit to see where most of their energy wastage was, might have been better to get more batteries for the evening.
 
Jean Claude Vaaldamme said:
Yeah not that easy.
I know many people with big solar systems and only one saves money or rather close to break even. It is a retired couple sitting at home mostly. Their geyser is on only in the day and they do most things during the day. Also only use an Air fryer and small induction stove.
The rest that carry on as normal and are not at home during most of the day when the sun is shining, saves a 100 or two a month on their electricity. Will never get their money for the installation back.
Click to expand...
Then they havent done their audit properly or the config is not correct
 
Jean Claude Vaaldamme said:
Yeah not that easy.
I know many people with big solar systems and only one saves money or rather close to break even. It is a retired couple sitting at home mostly. Their geyser is on only in the day and they do most things during the day. Also only use an Air fryer and small induction stove.
The rest that carry on as normal and are not at home during most of the day when the sun is shining, saves a 100 or two a month on their electricity. Will never get their money for the installation back.
Click to expand...
i think many have instalations that have heavy use items not on inverter cause it will trip the inverter
or so the installers tell them

so with only low consuming devices you can only save as much
i have a tiny system only started adding panels gradually since last year july only had 8 panles by nov
crossed R14 000 solar production today but use every unit the panels can produce (3.65kwp)

if you aren't home when production happens you have to have more battery to time shift the load

most people the biggest problem is they have a single 5kwh battery
they tried to keep the instalation cost as low as possible so saving onl;y R12 a day via battery best you can do is R360 if you have zero load in the day

the geyser is your friend
a geyser can soak up 6-8 units a day easily at the R3 a unit that is another R18--24 a day heating one bath session on a 150L
 
for most people the best thing they can do is make sure to pay a bit more and get a sunsynk
and an installer that knows what he is doing to get the grid feed setup done right

have encountered so many people that aren't saving what they should
and turns out the settings to feed heavy usage devices pre inverter isn't done right

have encountered a guy with a setup that must have cost him R250k at the time

he asked me to help him set a digital timer,
so just wanted to check that the thing is on his solar before i set long run times that would empty his meter if not the case
it wasn't using solar or excess solar naturally

so after noticing it isn't on solar, wanted to check his production to make suggestions
showing me his production 5kwh per day
i almost started laughing really had to control myself

hopefully all the installers that fold are the guys respoible for instals like those ,
really hurting peoples confidence in solar
 
Brawler said:
My current electricity bill is about R2400 pm (Cape Town).

I have a 3 bedroom house. Electric stove/oven and normal electric geyser. 3 people.

About how much will I need to spend to go mostly off grid (not entirely) and what will my electricity bill be?

We have really noticed the electricity increase this year so considering going off grid. Are prices of solar coming down now that there is less demand (no load shedding)?
Click to expand...
How much units? My units was 600 per month before solar. Now between 700 to 800 units.

My winter bill is roughly R600 pm. Summer, 100% free when at home. But since we work, we do stuff after hours, i.e. either battery or Eskom.
 
Brawler said:
My current electricity bill is about R2400 pm (Cape Town).

I have a 3 bedroom house. Electric stove/oven and normal electric geyser. 3 people.

About how much will I need to spend to go mostly off grid (not entirely) and what will my electricity bill be?

We have really noticed the electricity increase this year so considering going off grid. Are prices of solar coming down now that there is less demand (no load shedding)?
Click to expand...
the excell sheet mentioned in the article is actually good
a person may get a bit more out of the system ie it doesn;t overestimate what you can get out of it vs others i have seen

have seen one that uses the max possible in sunny weather to extrapolate how much you will save over a month
and then naturally be nowhere close to the truth , ie soalr installers overselling the benefit to get the sale

but to me this one seems to be very realistic in expectations

Can first try and time shift some of your load like dishwashers /geyser etc to day time to see if it works for you

having lower % overnight brings down the battery costs

https://globalsolaratlas.info/map will also be useful to compare estimated units vs the max possible for the panels specs for your specific areas ie i live in george and our sun hours avg per day for my exact spot is a bit lower than SA avg
 
Last edited:
If they get their 42% it's not a question of if, but how big you should start off with.

Only the suckers like the resident fool in this thread will be happy to keep paying...
 
Yea when you factor in price increase of 8% every year thumbsuck

You can see it two ways

You either pay of the system in the first 4/5 years (excluding interest)

or

1 year at the end, the 20th year

The fact that after 20yrs your yearly bill will be almost what the system costs now is a compounding nightmare
 
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Mike Hoxbig said:
If they get their 42% it's not a question of if, but how big you should start off with.

Only the suckers like the resident fool in this thread will be happy to keep paying...
Click to expand...
Yea just that one increase
If it happens

will shave of almost a year from the roi
 
The solar gods always speak about if. If this if that. How load shedding will become worse we have heard a million times. How big increases we going to get, too. All their calculations is based of if and projections, no real life.
Funny thing is, There is no, if my batteries pack up, if my inverter blows up, if my panels break. if we sit 60 days per year without sun.
What about the if you sell your house now and there is no load shedding and solar prices is half what you paid for it?
How is your ROI doing then? Nobody will pay more than 20% of the value of a solar system extra for a house when we in load shedding, never mind now.
 
Jean Claude Vaaldamme said:
The solar gods always speak about if. If this if that. How load shedding will become worse we have heard a million times. How big increases we going to get, too. All their calculations is based of if and projections, no real life.
Funny thing is, There is no, if my batteries pack up, if my inverter blows up, if my panels break. if we sit 60 days per year without sun.
What about the if you sell your house now and there is no load shedding and solar prices is half what you paid for it?
How is your ROI doing then? Nobody will pay more than 20% of the value of a solar system extra for a house when we in load shedding, never mind now.
Click to expand...
i have had lithium battery backup since jan 2021
and still problem free , did a diy battery build
from what i can see i have lost about 4% of capacity
mostly due to cycling too deep initially with smaller bank and bad balancing so longevity wise still looking good

the increases has been big enough to already make a massive impact on roi
so even if we don't have a single increase from here on out after 5-6 years you would be enjoying x amount of electricity for free

even on rainy/cloudy days your panels will still produce some power
the other day i happened to check this on a rainy day got 10% of normal output (naturally you will have the odd day here and there that might be even lower
even with bad weather i still save electricity

started getting panels last year july
and have generated R14 000 of electriciy

so it is currently looking like i will make all the momey back in about 4.5 years
sure some stuff may pack up

the way i see it , if you have gotten all your money spent back it is like an item that somody gave you for free if it packs up you would say it cost mne nothing so nothing lost, some warrantees are longer than the roi window so really not a big deal

the same applies if you sell your house even if you get 20c on the rand if you made the money back it doesn't matter realy

the point for me was i already had the expense of getting battery/inverter to be able to work through shedding

now adding the panels is a seperate calculation for me, spendinmg the money on panels it would take 18mnths to make back the cash layout on panels alone

so if a panel breaks the same got it for free logic applies, the only difference now is after that 18mnths they are getting money back i had to waste to weather load shedding which is a bargain

hindsight is 20/20 if i could go back in time i would have borrowed to install panels on day one instead of waiting for cashflow to do it cash
the problem is lots of people have bad instalations, /stories that spread

i know i encountered a guy that had higher electricity bill after solar install vs before
his wife was so pisse dof he decided to gi solar

i sorted out his settings, and in the meantime he has upgraded his system
 
This is what we are doing. The request to install is with the trustees of our body corporate.

It is not about making provision for load shedding. It is all about saving as the cost of electricity keeps escalating. Peace of mind comes with the installation and the knowledge that failures of the grid are mitigated.

The more that price of Eskum escalates, the more the installation pays for itself.
 
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