Load shedding has been the loud reason every South African household and business has gone looking for solar. But "the best system for load shedding" depends entirely on what you're protecting and how much you're willing to spend. Here's how to think about it without falling for either the cheapest or the most expensive option.
The three tiers — pick the one that matches your situation
Tier 1: Battery backup only (no solar)
A pure inverter + battery, no panels. Charges from the grid when the grid is on, then runs essential circuits when load shedding kicks in.
What it does well: Keeps the lights, Wi-Fi, fridge, alarm and a few plugs running through an outage. Quick to install (1–2 days).
What it doesn't do: Save you any money. Your electricity bill is the same — you've just shifted consumption from grid to battery and back.
Cost: R45 000 – R90 000 for 5–10 kWh of usable storage, depending on inverter.
Best for: People who only want load shedding solved and don't care about the bill. Or, as a stepping stone — install the inverter and battery now, add panels next year.
Tier 2: Hybrid solar (solar + battery + grid)
The system that solves load shedding and cuts your bill. Solar produces during the day, charges the battery while running your loads, then the battery covers evening peak and load shedding outages.
What it does well: Eliminates load shedding for essential loads AND cuts your Eskom bill by 50–80%. Most households we install for go this route.
Cost: R150 000 – R250 000 for a typical 10 kWp residential system with 16 – 32 kWh battery. R200 000 – R350 000+ for larger homes.
Payback period: 3–5 years on the solar portion. The battery doesn't strictly "pay back" but operates as outage insurance and adds to property value.
Best for: Homes and small businesses where load shedding matters AND the electricity bill is above R4 000/month.
Tier 3: Full off-grid / near-off-grid
A bigger PV array, more battery, sometimes a backup generator. You disconnect from Eskom either physically or in practice.
Cost: R150 000 – R300 000+ for residential, R1.5M+ for commercial.
Best for: Lifestyle estates, smallholdings, remote sites. Overkill for a typical urban home.
How to size for load shedding specifically
The trick is distinguishing essential loads from luxury loads.
Essentials (under 1.5 kW total): lights, fridge, Wi-Fi, alarm, security cameras, garage door, a TV, a phone charger.
Heavy loads (2–8 kW each): kettle, microwave, oven, geyser, aircon, pool pump, tumble dryer.
A small battery (5 kWh) can carry essentials through 4–6 hours of load shedding comfortably. To run kettles, aircons and ovens through an outage, you need 10–15 kWh+ of battery — which materially changes the system cost.
The honest conversation we have with most homeowners: size the battery for essentials, schedule heavy loads to run when solar is producing or grid is on, and you'll never notice load shedding without paying for the bigger system.
What about a "load shedding inverter" with no battery?
Some people ask about getting just an inverter with no battery, expecting it to magically keep things running. It can't. An inverter without a battery (or solar producing at that moment) has nothing to invert. During load shedding both Eskom AND your inverter are silent. The inverter is the brain. The battery is the energy. Both are needed.
What about a generator?
For backup-only purposes, a 5kVA petrol generator costs R15 000 – R25 000 and can run your essentials. Downsides: noise, fuel cost (R25 – R40/hour at petrol prices), maintenance, the inconvenience of starting it. Most homeowners find that after the novelty of running a generator twice, they wish they'd just got the battery.
The premium QES approach
We install hybrid systems from 10 kW upwards. That's our minimum because below that, the engineering compromises start to add up — and the price-war competition gets ugly. We use tier-1 panels (Canadian Solar, LONGi, JA Solar, Trina Solar), tier-1 hybrid inverters (Deye, Sunsynk, Sigenergy, GoodWe, Atess, Megarevo, Tesla), and LiFePO4 batteries from Greenrich and Tesla. If you need a smaller system, we'll refer you to a trusted partner rather than build you something we wouldn't put on our own house.
Free assessment
Tell us your average monthly bill and what you want to keep running through any outage. We'll come back inside 24 hours with a sized system, price range and payback period.