Pillar guide
How solar works in South Africa
From panels on the roof to power in your DB board — with SA-specific notes on the grid, load shedding, and municipal embedded generation (SSEG).
The basic building blocks
A typical home solar system has four parts people care about:
- Solar panels (PV modules) — convert sunlight into DC electricity.
- Inverter — converts DC to AC your appliances use, and manages grid interaction and (on hybrids) batteries.
- Battery / BESS (optional but common in SA) — stores energy for evening use and load shedding.
- Protection, metering & paperwork — breakers, changeover, Certificate of Compliance (CoC), and often municipal SSEG registration.
Grid-tied vs hybrid vs off-grid
Grid-tied (solar only)
Panels and an inverter reduce what you buy from Eskom or your municipality during the day. Without a battery and hybrid backup path, most pure grid-tied systems shut down during a grid outage for safety (anti-islanding). Great for bill reduction when the grid is stable; not a load-shedding solution on their own.
Hybrid (solar + battery + backup)
The most popular SA home pattern: daytime self-consumption, evening battery use, and a backup circuit (or whole-home backup on larger systems) when stages hit. The inverter is the “brain”.
Off-grid / near off-grid
Designed to run independently of the utility. Needs careful load design, more storage, and often generator support. Rarely the cheapest first step for urban homes still on the grid.
South African grid & municipal context
Most homes buy electricity either from Eskom directly or from a municipality that buys in bulk and resells. Tariffs, fixed charges, and rules for feeding power back differ by distributor.
SSEG (Small-Scale Embedded Generation)
Many metros require customers who connect generation to the grid to register as SSEG customers, use approved equipment, and often install bi-directional metering. NERSA has issued net-billing related rules; municipalities publish their own application processes and tariffs. Export credits (when available) are often lower than the retail import rate — so using your own solar first (self-consumption) usually drives payback more than selling excess.
What happens in load shedding?
When the utility disconnects your area, a correctly configured hybrid system can island critical loads (lights, Wi-Fi, fridge, selected plugs) from battery and solar. Non-backed loads go dark unless you size for whole-home backup. See our load shedding & backup guide.
From interest to switch-on
- Bill and load assessment
- Design (panel layout, inverter size, battery kWh, backup circuits)
- Quotes compared on equipment, warranties, CoC, SSEG support
- Installation by a registered electrician / accredited team
- Commissioning, CoC, and municipal registration where required