Solar that pays for the next harvest.

It depends less on the kW of solar and more on what kind of Eskom connection you're replacing. For grid-tied farms running heavy daytime loads — pivots, packhouses, cold rooms — 50kW upwards is where the engineering and economics line up best. Below that, hybrid grid-tied systems start to compete on price more than engineering, which isn't where we play.

But there's a second case that often gets overlooked: a small farm connection — one outbuilding, a remote dwelling, an isolated borehole site — where Eskom's fixed monthly charges (service, admin, network capacity, demand, Generation Capacity Charge) eat most of the bill before a single kWh is used.

On a typical Ruraflex connection with a 25–30 kVA Network Maximum Demand, the fixed charges alone are around R5 000 – R7 000 per month — that's R60 000 – R85 000 a year just to keep the connection live. Add modest usage and you're at R100 000+ per year for a low-use site. With Eskom restructuring fixed costs upwards (the service portion is moving from 33% to 66% over three years), this number is going up, not down.

In that scenario, a small 10kW off-grid system with a 16–20 kWh battery and a small standby generator (around R230 000 – R260 000 all-in) can pay itself back in 2–3 years on the fixed charges alone — before you even count the kWh saving or future tariff increases. Disconnecting the connection point entirely turns a R70 000/year line item into zero.

The honest answer: send us your Eskom bill (or a clear photo of the breakdown showing service, network and demand charges). If your fixed monthly charges total over R3 000/month on a small connection, a 10kW off-grid disconnect is almost certainly worth investigating. If your bill is mostly energy charges with low fixed costs, we'll point you at hybrid grid-tied instead.

On most farms, technically yes — practically rarely the right answer. The smarter design for 90% of farming operations is a grid-tied hybrid system: solar carries the daytime load, battery covers critical overnight loads and brief outages, and Eskom remains as back-up rather than primary supply. That setup typically costs 40–60% less than a true off-grid system because you can size the PV array and battery to the average week, not the worst-case cloudy week.

The exception is the case described in the previous answer — a small farm connection where Eskom's fixed charges are eating R3 000+/month before any kWh is used. In that scenario, disconnecting the point of supply entirely and going off-grid with a 10kW + battery + small standby genset makes excellent economic sense. The genset runs 3–5% of the year (cloudy weeks, unusual peak loads, maintenance windows) and the rest comes from solar and battery.

For a large farm running multiple pivots, packhouses, dairies and cold chains, full off-grid is technically possible but expensive. Expect to oversize the PV array by 50–80% versus a hybrid, add a battery bank sized for 1.5 days of essential autonomy, and include a backup generator sized to 60–70% of peak load. A 200ha farm doing this typically lands at R2–3 million all-in, dropping to R1.5–2.2 million after the Section 12B tax saving.

The cleanest way to decide: send us your last three Eskom bills with the tariff breakdown visible. We'll model both off-grid and hybrid for your specific operation and tell you honestly which one pays back fastest.

Yes — for systems up to 1MW that are used in the production of income, Section 12B of the Income Tax Act allows 100% of the qualifying cost to be deducted in the first year the system is brought into use. That includes panels, inverters, batteries, mounting, wiring and installation labour — the whole system treated as a single deductible asset.

On a real example: a R1.2 million, 100kW farm system, for a farming entity taxed at the 27% corporate rate, recovers around R324 000 in year-one tax relief on top of the Eskom savings. For a sole-prop or partnership farm taxed at the personal marginal rate (up to 45%), the relief is proportionally larger.

What doesn't qualify: a private residence not used for income generation. If a portion of a system serves both a farm operation and a residential dwelling, only the income-producing portion qualifies — your accountant will pro-rata it. Above 1MW the system depreciates 50/30/20 over three years rather than 100% in year one.

Note: the temporary 125% enhanced allowance (Section 12BA) ended on 28 February 2025 and was not renewed in the 2025 Budget. But Section 12B itself is permanent legislation — it isn't going anywhere.

We provide the full bill of materials, structural sign-off and dated commissioning certificate your accountant needs to claim Section 12B. Speak to your accountant on your specific position, but for any commercial farming entity this is straightforward to claim.

All three are real concerns on a farm install — and all three are manageable with the right design choices.

Hail. Every tier-1 panel we install (Canadian Solar, LONGi, JA Solar, Trina Solar) is certified to IEC 61215 and IEC 61730 — tested to withstand 25mm hail at 23m/s. That covers severe-to-extreme highveld hailstorms. For sites with a known history of larger hail (40mm+), we offer optional hail-rated mounting frames that improve impact resistance further.

Lightning. We fit Type 1 and Type 2 surge protection devices (SPDs) on both the DC side (between panels and inverter) and the AC side (between inverter and your DB board). On large or exposed installations we add an external lightning protection system — air terminals plus a separate earth ring. The cost is modest, usually R8 000 – R20 000, and far cheaper than replacing an inverter.

Theft. A bigger problem in some districts than others. Our options: panel-level alarms (each panel reports if disconnected), perimeter intrusion alarms, GPS-tracked inverters, and visible site lighting. We don't install fencing or armed response — that's your security provider's domain — but we'll specify the system to integrate with whatever's already on the farm.

Insurance. Most farm insurers (Santam, OUTsurance Business, Old Mutual iWyze and the agri-specialists like CIA / Hollard Agri) cover a properly installed PV system as a structural improvement at no significant premium increase, provided you give them the SSEG approval certificate, the installer's tax clearance and the bill of materials. We provide all three on every handover.

Yes — and most of our farm installs are outside Gauteng. Our standard service area is the inland farming belt: Gauteng, Free State, North West, Mpumalanga and Limpopo. For these provinces we charge standard travel rates and the install timeline isn't materially different from a Gauteng-based job.

We also take on farm installs in the Northern Cape, the KwaZulu-Natal Highlands, and the deeper Eastern Free State (Harrismith, Bethlehem, Reitz, Phuthaditjhaba). For these we charge a small travel premium — typically R5 000 – R15 000 on a R500 000+ install — and we plan for a longer initial site survey trip.

For sites further out — Cape provinces, KZN coast, deep rural Limpopo / Mpumalanga — we'll be honest about whether we're the right team. If we can't deliver the same workmanship standard and on-site response we'd offer in our core area, we'll refer you to a trusted installer in your region rather than overpromise.

The cleanest way to confirm: send us your address (or just the nearest town). We'll come back within 24 hours with a clear yes or a referral, before any quoting starts.

On a properly sized hybrid system, your critical loads keep running through every stage of load shedding — no flicker, no notification, the lights just stay on. The inverter detects the grid drop within 10–20 milliseconds and switches your protected circuits to battery power before any sensitive equipment has a chance to reset. Meanwhile the solar array keeps charging the battery during daylight, so a multi-stage day actually feeds the battery instead of draining it.

The trick is knowing what to put on the protected circuit. Critical loads for a farm typically include: the cold room compressor, the parlour and milk cooling tank, the packhouse refrigeration, the borehole pump that supplies water, the security system, lighting in the dairy and labourer compound. Non-critical loads — workshop machinery, geyser elements, large air-conditioners, the office kettle — usually stay on the grid-only side so they don't accidentally drain the battery during an extended outage.

We design the protected vs non-protected split during the site survey, based on your specific operation. The standard approach is to size the battery for 4–6 hours of critical-load autonomy — enough for a Stage 6 day plus a bit of headroom. For dairy and cold-chain operations we often go bigger (8–12 hours) so a worst-case milking or cold-pull window is covered even with overlapping stages.

The end result: load shedding becomes a phone notification, not an operational problem. Most of our farm clients can't tell you the current stage off the top of their head a month after install — the system has removed the daily friction entirely.