A while back i invested in a solar system to help during the summer months to save, well needless to say, i invested R6000 to pay some debt and extra in my December holiday in 2024. As a solar reseller and contract installer I can truly say that in 2 years I can say system is mine. I just could not afford to pay eskom R500 per month and only receive 192 UNITS, which some of you might think this guy is a cheap skate, as forour bill is R3500 per month, but think of your immediate saving and take every year as different. Your budget for power is actual expense. Winter I will add battery and see how much i need to spend on prepaid eskom.
For us, a 3 bedroom home, with 2 adults, 2 children a 5kw system with 8 solar panels of 555w, im quite happy.
The battery should drop your bill. The spare PV you have during the day gets stored in the battery and released later.
Youâll do better if you can change your routines.
I have a 10kWh battery. If this has and SOC of 100% at 16:00, we will get through until at least 8:00 the next morning. But gas for cooking, and we run appliances and heat water during the day. No more running the dishy after supper, it waits until the sun is shining. And etc.
Weâre not entirely self-denying. We do use the kettle, might use the air fryer. Two adults, and most month I pay R400 for electricity - which is the minimum you can pay in Johannesburg under the current tariffs.
System:
5.2kw panels
5kva inverter
17kWh bank - used to 10% SOC.
With:
10.5 people on the property.
3 geysers and 1 gas geyser. I refused to put electric one in. EV tubes, heat pump, no ROI the 2nd round.
Some cooking with gas.
With some lifestyle adjustments.
Legend:
Batts was recharged to 72% due to weather the day before. Otherwise they take us through the night at max 1.5kw per hour.
People needed to shower so geysers x 2 had to be heated late. Bleh. Cents on the rand per year, as we planned badly.
Way to go! And a small contribution to the revolution. Eskom needs to get supply right and encourage demand. Right now theyâre discouraging demand and encouraging disconnection from grid. Let them. Your own system = better shielding against your municipalityâs mess AND cheaper in the long term. Heck, even with financing the system is better than paying Eskom.
But, somehow, strangely, many people decided solar isnât for them the moment load shedding stopped. Even if their monthly cash flow would have been better with a system. Not everyone has the capital to put down for the system, but you donât need it. I do not understand why most people do not get the simple math.
When load shedding stopped in March/April, installation inquiries dropped to nearly zero, then Eskom started talking about 36 and 46 (municipal) percent increases, my installations picked up quite a bit, now that Eskom is again talking about hitting solar users ( low Eskom usage ) with a fixed cost, calls have dropped off again.
When we were having stage 6 people would break into the piggy bank and put in solar because they could justify the spend. Now weâre 200 and whatever days with no shedding, they preserve the savings instead.
Itâs not cheap. The ROI is years off. Rather leave the money earning interest.
The fixed charges have been on many tariffs for years. Theyâre not really about extracting something from solar users, theyâre about splitting the charge into two components
the cost of supplying the connection (the same irrespective of consumption)
what you actually consume.
In Johannesburg, users on the default tariff were paying about a grand in fixed fees anyway. Pre-paid users (like me) were paying just for consumption.
Now when the fixed fees on pre-paid meters were announced, I went down to the public participation session and spoke about how the City should not punish pre-paid users because we are good for their cash flow. After all, we pay up front for stuff we will use later, whereas with the default package the city is getting their money in 60 days at best.
I did that because I am interested in my wallet and itâs contents. But if I were the City I would have probably do as they have done.
Look at me and my neighbour. He is on the default tariff, paying a grand odd before he uses a single unit. I am on pre-paid, paying just for what I use (which is not much, because I have solar). For the City the cost of supplying the two properties is the same. With more and more people switching to pre-paid, revenues were dropping and something had to give.
@Tariqe Iâm not sure where you potential customers live. But tell them to read their bills carefully. As I said, Johannesburg has been imposing fixed fees for years. A lot of residents didnât notice, they just paid whatever the total was.
Then the solar boom came and round where I live I saw the same scenario play out repeatedly. Guy gets solar installed. Now heâs not going to pay anything for electricity, right? So now he starts looking at his bill in a bit more detail and finds that no matter what he does, heâs paying City Power a grand a month.
Well he always was, but he just never noticed.
Very quickly the story goes around that this is the ANC (not the City) penalising solar users. It wasnât, and if those guys had just checked their bills before and after installation they would have seen what was going on.
Anyway, I now have a fixed fee per month on my account. I still save money. I can easily work out the actual consumption for my house and what I would have paid the City. Subtract my actual payment and there is my saving.
So try to get potential customers to check their bills carefully. They may find that they are paying fixed fees already.
Alright - definitely not understanding this. So if you finance it, there is no dipping into savings. Yes ROI is years off either way, more so with financing. Why donât people do it then?
Even with fixed fees. Given that the per kWh prices are still R 3 and above
True, no dipping BUT nothing is free as the calculation over wot 60(?) months for the ROI gets complicated.
Buying electricity upfront, you now taking over âEskomâsâ role, one must then also factor in the replacements costs after warranty periods have expired.
When equipment reaches EOL, everything gets replaced ⌠as Eskom has learnt in a very hard way.
Well, these companies that rent to buy or finance a system must be out to make a profit. So if you would pay 125k cash for a system, your repayments will total more than 125k. By a not so small amount because they are taking risk.
Also these rent to buy companies tend to control the inverter and itâs configuration, and some insist that any credit you get for reselling (which is their decision to make because they control the inverter) comes to them.
Ok rent to buy I think would be way over. What if you financed it from your home loan facility. Thatâs you getting it at your terms at your home loan interest rate. Does it still not make sense?
I think there are advantages to including it in your bond. Youâre only paying interest, not the margin the rental company will add.The installer gets his money when he does the job.
And itâs yours and you can change settings as much as you want to: You have control. This is important to some of us.
A trusted colleague informs me that the capital cost and lifespan of your system (especially batteries) need to be included in your expenses.
He maintains that if this is done grid power ends up cheaper.
I think as usual with grown up answers - it depends. My system pays for itself assuming I kill the inverter and battery in 10 years when warranty ends.
If I buy a solar system with batteries to reduce my Eskom bill vs taking that monies and invest it wisely paying Eskom out of the proceeds of the investment, what will the numbers be after 10 years?
And if the equipment lasts 15 years?
20 years?
The above assumes there are no replacement/repair costs in that period, as one bought right, right warranty too.
The investment, as you draw from it, inflation the biggest killer, depreciates.
Eskom costs, paid out of investment proceeds, are linked to inflation.
The solar system bought ârightâ paid for once with âstrongerâ money, does not depreciate like the investment does if one uses it till it is EOL.
After a time, investment is gone, as is the solar system.
I am only now learning about how an extra screen on the laptop works. 
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