Important information for people buying power stations for winter load-shedding

Many South African households shopping for a backup battery to endure load-shedding this winter should consider one with at least a kilowatt-hour (1kWh) of energy storage.

During a media briefing in early May 2025, Eskom painted a rosy image of load-shedding’s low probability between April and August 2025.

Under its most optimistic base case scenario, which assumed 13,000MW of unplanned generation breakdowns, it had anticipated no days with load-shedding.

However, at the time of its presentation, Eskom had already implemented load-shedding on one day in April.

In its next best scenario, Eskom assumed 14,000MW of unplanned outages would require just one day of stage 2 load-shedding.

That scenario also gone out the window with four more days of power cuts last week, as unplanned outages far exceeded 15,000MW, Eskom’s worst-case scenario.

Under the scenario, Eskom had forecast 21 days of load-shedding. Unless the power utility rapidly improves the performance of its generating fleet, load-shedding will likely be more frequent than Eskom anticipated.

Energy analyst Matthew Cruise has warned that the power utility could implement up to stage 4 load-shedding during the period, rather than the stage 2 it had anticipated.

Households who don’t yet have a backup power system may find this to be an opportune time to invest in one.

However, despite substantial price drops in recent years, a fully-integrated entry-level backup system without solar will still cost well over R30,000.

Instead, they could invest in a two-in-one portable power station or inverter trolley, “plug-and-play” systems with no additional installation costs.

These systems can support ample capacity to power numerous appliances during a typical bout of load-shedding.

The output capacity and storage of the power station you will require will depend on what appliances you want to use and how much electricity they require.

Calculating capacity

MyBroadband assembled 10 of the best portable power stations for enduring the stage 2 load-shedding expected by Eskom this coming winter.

As a general guideline to determine the appropriate battery capacity, we used Eskom’s average of 656kW monthly consumption for households on its most common residential tariff — Homepower 4.

That works out to just shy of 22kWh per day or 1kWh per hour.

Therefore, the average household would require a power station that could supply at least 2kWh of energy for stage 2 load-shedding protection, assuming they want to maintain their typical usage.

There are many options in the market with this capacity selling for under R15,000.

For those households who only need to run a TV, fridge, and a few lights during load-shedding, it would be safe to assume an hourly power draw of 500Wh.

Over the typical two hours of load-shedding under stage 2, they would need 1,000Wh or 1kWh of energy storage.

If the households which bought a 2kWh inverter trolley or power station were also able to reduce their demand to 500Wh per hour, their backup power could last through stage 4 load-shedding.

The tables below summarise a few recommended portable power stations with sufficient capacities to last through stage 2 or stage 4 load-shedding with 500Wh consumption per hour.