South Africa’s solar carnage

Solar power installers are reducing overheads and offering niche after-sales service to remain relevant to a heavily contested market.
Well-established installers are not only feeling the pressure from the decline in load-shedding in the past few months but also from an explosion of smaller installers.
That includes some lesser-known operators who may lack the professional skills, experience, and aftersales service that many households demand.
The year-on-year increase in load-shedding severity experienced from 2019 to 2023 caused a surge in demand for solar power products.
Among the well-known companies that have seen their business impacted by a flood of providers is Solar Advice, which began offering solar power system installations in 2016.
Solar Advice director Neil Berrow told MyBroadband that the company’s sales have been cut in half since late 2023.
While Berrow said that the reduction in load-shedding had an impact on sales, most of the decline was due to many more providers springing up almost overnight.
“The sheer amount of those offering solar has been drastic,” Berrow said. “From small contractors to aircon installers and even plumbers.”
As a result of the declining sales, Solar Advice had to reduce its overheads.
Berrow explained that the increased overheads were initially due to the substantial surge in demand experienced in 2023.
“We are operating in the same space as we were four years ago, but we now have a fantastic and experienced team,” Berrow said.
He added that Solar Advice was not really pivoting or altering its offerings to arrest its sales decline.
“Although the solar bubble has burst, we still believe in solar as a technology and the future of clean sustainable energy” Berrow said.
“We started out as a blog helping those wanting to understand solar power and to make a difference to the world. Our belief in that has not changed.”
AWPower executive chairman Henri Hattingh also told MyBroadband the company had seen a 50% decline in residential solar orders since September 2023.
“Since April 2024, when load-shedding disappeared, sales of residential solar were at about 20% of the same time the previous year,” Hattingh said.
Fortunatey, commercial customer demand has picked up again from June 2024.
Hattingh believes that this is due to businesses looking at the potential savings in electricity costs in the long run.
He said that although AWPower’s order volumes had decreased, the average value of each order had increased significantly.
Berrow agreed that rising electricity costs were likely to play a role in continued demand for self-generation.
Turning once-off customers into repeat buyers
One solar installer which has come up with an additional potential revenue stream is Mirua Technology.
Whereas Solar Advice went from an online solar-focused blog to an installer, Mirua was previously an IT services provider.
The company previously told MyBroadband that pivoting into solar and backup power equipment was not that difficult as it had already acquired significant experience with this hardware when it came to running servers under load-shedding.
As a solar power installer, it has received rave reviews on Google and Facebook from dozens of people, with average ratings of 4.5/5 and 86% on those platforms.
Miura explained that it aimed to offer such exceptional service that those who paid for its products and services would become repeat buyers.
Where they might have previously installed a smaller, purpose-fit system to try self-generation, Mirua stays in contact with its customers to follow up on whether their needs have changed.
The company recently also started advertising panel maintenance subscriptions, starting from R125 per month, for cleaning one to 12 panels every six months.
Experts recommend that solar panels be washed at least once a year, as dirty panels can be 20% to 25% less efficient when dirty.
Beware fly-by-nights
AWPower, Solar Advice, and Mirua Technology have all received a lot of business from customers who wanted to fix issues that many fly-by-night installers had left in their wake.
“In many cases, it was obvious that the original installer disappeared, and we found that systems installed during the load-shedding rush never conformed to regulatory and safety requirements,” Hattingh stated.
In 2023, the Consumer Goods and Services Ombud issued an alert about a 50% surge in complaints relating to businesses that provide solar systems and generators.
Among the most common complaints were installers failing to issue compliance certificates, poor workmanship and installation, warranties not being honoured, no aftersales services, and misleading advertising of panel, inverter, and battery specifications.
In more serious cases, faulty installations could have devastating consequences.
Fire Ops South Africa estimated that about one in every six incidents firefighters responded to in 2023 was related to a shoddy solar panel installation.
There are several ways to avoid falling victim to a solar scammer or a provider that is simply not up to the task of providing reliable and safe systems, including:
- Asking trustworthy neighbours, friends, and family for recommendations on installers
- Looking up and double-checking an installer’s review history and testimonies online
- Searching the Companies and Intellectual Properties Commission database to verify how long the provider has been in business and check for any irregularities
- Ensuring the installer is a registered Installation Electrician with the Department of Labour and the Electrical Conformance Board of South Africa
- Confirming whether the installer will provide a wireman who can sign off on a Certificate of Compliance