The age of grid defection is upon us as solar and battery systems become more affordable- Sapvia

SOLAR and battery systems have got so cheap that many private individuals, farmers and companies are waking up to the fact that in many locations in South Africa it is now less expensive to be off the electrical grid than to be on it.

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This has been driven by two key factors: First is the rapidly rising cost of electricity supplied by Eskom and municipalities in South Africa, where tariffs have increased above inflation every year for the last 17 years.

The second has been the rapidly declining cost of photovoltaic (PV) solar panels and lithium batteries over the same period of time, with manufacturing volume of such growing exponentially each year, always exceeding even the most optimistic projections.

Until recently installing solar and battery systems was done to save money during the daytime (due to the super-cheap solar electricity production), and to protect against loadshedding (through the battery component).

But for many locations in South Africa, it is now possible to generate electricity from such systems that can cover not only the daytime demand of a consumer, but the nighttime demand as well, to such an extent that remaining on the grid is no longer necessary.

This is further being driven by the fact that the fixed costs to actually bring the wires to properties are now going up significantly faster than the energy charges to bring you electricity over those same wires. So why have the wires at all?

Yet it is true that to cover 100% of your supply with solar and batteries can be challenging. There are two cost effective ways to mitigate against this.

One is to install a backup petrol/diesel generator, whose occasional use may be expensive, but the blended cost of the solar and batteries and generator and fuel could still be less than the cost to buy from the grid. The other is to switch to an Electric Vehicle (EV), which can act as the backup to the solar battery system, and be recharged on the grid if need be.