How much does solar save on an Eskom Landrate farm supply in 2026?

Answer first: On Landrate every kWh you stop buying saves roughly R3.57 incl. VAT in 2026/27 — more than most metro households pay on their top block. That makes daytime farm loads such as borehole pumps, irrigation, cold rooms and workshop tools excellent solar candidates. The tariff design decides how you capture it: keep generation off the Eskom supply and you keep the full Landrate saving; tie it to the grid and Eskom moves you to Ruraflex time-of-use. Related: farm solar · borehole pumps on solar · irrigation pumps.

What Landrate costs in 2026/27

Eskom increased its rural tariffs — Ruraflex, Nightsave Rural, Landrate and Landlight — by 8.76% from 1 April 2026 (Eskom 2026/27 tariff increase page). Landrate 1 to 4 bill a single energy rate with no time-of-use bands, plus daily fixed charges sized to the supply’s notified maximum demand (Eskom Schedule of Standard Prices 2026/27).

Sources: Eskom Schedule of Standard Prices 2026/27; Augos tariff database, Landrate non-local 2026/27 (accessed 27 Oct 2026). Larger bands carry higher daily network charges — R67.65, R105.49 and up to R168.93 per day in the parsed schedule. Eskom’s revenue-recovery filing with NERSA works out the average Landrate price at 463.92 c/kWh for 2026/27 once those fixed charges are spread across all Landrate sales (Eskom FY2027 revenue-recovery table filed with NERSA (Annexure B)).

For the smallest band, the three daily fixed charges add up to R79.29 a day excl. VAT — about R2 410 a month before a single kWh. That money stays on the account whatever solar you install. The saving lives in the 310 c variable line.

The rule that shapes every farm design

Eskom’s 2026/27 schedule describes Landrate 1–4 as tariffs for rural supplies “without grid-tied generation”, with a footnote that a time-of-use tariff is mandatory for grid-tied generation (Eskom Schedule of Standard Prices 2026/27). Eskom’s booklet defines grid-tied generation as a generator connected to the grid in parallel operation with it (Eskom Tariffs and Charges Booklet 2026/27). A hybrid inverter that synchronises with the Eskom supply is grid-tied, even on a zero-export setting.

So a farm has two paths:

1. Stay on Landrate and keep solar separate. Off-grid solar pumps, standalone off-grid systems for a cottage or cold room, and loads moved permanently onto an islanded solar circuit. Every kWh they no longer draw from Eskom is worth the full 310 c excl. VAT.
2. Go grid-tied and move to Ruraflex. Register the generator with Eskom, move to time-of-use, and run a hybrid system across the whole farm. The value of each daytime solar kWh then follows Ruraflex standard-time pricing, not the flat Landrate.

What a solar kWh is worth on Ruraflex instead

Ruraflex 2026/27 energy rates for a low-voltage supply within 300 km are 746.19 c peak, 186.55 c standard and 124.36 c off-peak in June–August, and 309.68 c peak, 174.11 c standard and 124.36 c off-peak from September to May, all excl. VAT, plus a 25.01 c legacy charge and kVA-based network charges (Augos tariff database, Ruraflex non-local 2026/27 (accessed 27 Oct 2026)). Midday is mostly standard time. A solar kWh used at noon on Ruraflex avoids about 174–187 c of energy charge — far less than the 310 c it avoids on Landrate.

That is why the right answer turns on load shape. A farm whose big loads run in daylight saves the most by keeping solar separate and staying on Landrate. A farm with heavy evening loads — packhouses, staff housing, dairy parlours at 17:00 — gains from Ruraflex plus a battery, because the evening peak at 746 c in winter and 310 c in summer is where stored solar earns. Run both models before you apply.

Worked example: a borehole pump on its own solar array

Take a borehole pump drawing 2.2 kW for six daylight hours a day — 13.2 kWh a day, about 400 kWh a month. On Landrate that is 400 × 356.97 c ≈ R1 430 a month incl. VAT, about R17 100 a year. Move the pump to a dedicated off-grid solar pump drive with its own panels and the full amount disappears from the Eskom account, with no tariff change and no generator registration. Water pumped into a reservoir or JoJo tank is the battery: pump hard while the sun shines and gravity-feed the rest of the day. See pressure pumps and tanks.

Repeat the sum for every daylight load you can isolate: irrigation pivots in the growing season, a workshop compressor, a cold-room compressor with thermal mass. Each kWh moved off Landrate is worth more than a top-block kWh in most metros.

When the whole farm should go hybrid

• Evening and early-morning loads dominate. Milking, packhouse lighting and staff housing use power when Landrate charges the flat rate and Ruraflex charges peak. A battery on Ruraflex stores midday solar for those hours.
• The supply is unreliable. Rural feeders suffer outages from storms, cable theft and transformer failure. A hybrid with a battery keeps cold chains and pumps running — useful, but price the savings first and treat backup as the secondary benefit.
• You want to export. Exporting requires grid-tied generation and a TOU tariff in any case. Eskom calculates export compensation separately under its Gen-offset tariff (Eskom Tariffs and Charges Booklet 2026/27), and a self-used kWh avoids the full import charge, so design for self-use first.

Size panels and batteries to the farm, not the brochure

Read 12 months of Eskom accounts for kWh per month and note the seasonal swing: irrigation farms peak in summer, dairies and citrus packhouses in winter. Size the array to the daylight load you can move, then add usable battery capacity only for the evening load that would otherwise land in Ruraflex peak. For lithium storage on a farm, put three numbers on the quote: rand per usable kWh, warrantied throughput, and the local service agent. 48 V DC LiFePO₄ is the oldest, most proven architecture for hybrid systems and the easiest to expand by module. South African-built options like Solar MD carry a 12-year or 84 MWh throughput warranty on the SS4160 (Solar MD), and local support matters when the nearest town is 80 km away. More: smallholding hybrid vs off-grid · hybrid vs off-grid.

Tax: farms get section 12B too

A farming business that owns a PV system used in its trade can deduct 100% of the cost of a system up to 1 MW in the year it is first used, under section 12B (SARS guide IT39 on renewable-energy allowances). Farming plant and machinery also falls under section 12B on a 50/30/20 basis (SARS Tax Guide for Small Businesses). Ask your accountant which category each item belongs to before you file — section 12B for small businesses.

Buying for the farm

Farms buy through local installers who source from national wholesalers. Ask which distributor stocks the inverter, battery and pump drive you are quoted, and where warranty swaps happen. Established wholesalers including ACDC Dynamics, Voltex, ARB, Herholdts, DBS Energy and SONAH Group supply rural installers; the right one is the one with stock and an RMA path near you. See trusted wholesalers.

Bottom line

Landrate makes every saved kWh worth about R3.57 incl. VAT in 2026/27, and the fixed charges of roughly R2 410 a month on the smallest band stay regardless. Isolate daylight loads — pumps first — onto solar that is not tied to the Eskom supply and you keep the full Landrate saving with no tariff change. Go grid-tied only when evening loads and a Ruraflex-plus-battery model beat that number on paper.

Quick questions

What does Landrate cost per kWh in 2026/27?

The active energy charge is 242.90 c/kWh excl. VAT, plus a 67.06 c/kWh network demand charge and a 0.45 c/kWh ancillary charge — about 310.41 c/kWh excl. VAT, or 356.97 c incl. VAT, before the daily fixed charges.

Can I put grid-tied solar on a Landrate supply?

Not on Landrate itself. Eskom’s 2026/27 schedule describes Landrate as a tariff for supplies without grid-tied generation and states that a time-of-use tariff is mandatory for grid-tied generation. Expect a move to Ruraflex when you connect.

Is an off-grid solar borehole pump worth it on a farm?

Yes. A solar pump on its own circuit avoids every Landrate kWh it would have used — about R3.57 incl. VAT each — without triggering a tariff change.

Do Landrate fixed charges stay after solar?

Yes. The daily administration, network capacity and generation capacity charges are billed per point of supply whether you use power or not. Solar cuts the energy lines only.