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Start where you are

Pillar 02

Power

Sized against a real load profile rather than a sales worksheet, and costed against what it displaces.

SolarBatteriesInvertersSizing it honestlyBackup

The short answer

Most South African solar quotes are sized against a wish rather than a measurement. Log your actual consumption for a fortnight before you accept any quote — the number is almost always lower than the installer assumes, and storage is the most expensive part of the system, so every unnecessary kilowatt-hour is paid for twice: once at installation, again at replacement.

There is more bad advice about solar in South Africa than about anything else on this site, and almost all of it comes from people selling panels.

The honest sequence is: measure what you use, decide what you genuinely cannot lose, size the battery to that and only that, then size the array to refill it. Doing it in the other order is how people end up with a very expensive installation and a geyser still on Eskom.

Guides

In this pillar

Each one names its sources, and says plainly where a figure could not be sourced.

Flow diagram showing the correct solar sizing sequence: measure the load, identify essential circuits, size the battery to those, size the inverter to peak demand, then size the panel array to refill the battery.

Power

How much solar do you actually need?

Measure first, then quote. The two-week logging method that will almost certainly shrink your system, and what every unnecessary kilowatt-hour of battery is costing you.

Comparison chart of four water heating interventions — insulation and timer, heat pump, solar geyser, and solar PV with element — plotted by installed cost against typical payback period.

Power

Solar geyser or heat pump: which is right for a South African house?

Water heating is the largest single load in most South African homes. Before you solve it with panels, it is worth knowing that two much cheaper things beat both options on payback.

The other six

Where this connects

Nothing on a smallholding is a closed system. These are the pillars this one touches most.

The Dispatch

One email a week, from the ground

What we are building, what we have sourced, and what it costs — with the supplier named and the quote dated. No affiliate padding, no doom, no filler.

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