South Africans should be prepared for load-shedding to be implemented on a regular basis in 2021. Power utility Eskom is undertaking an aggressive maintenance plan which will see it take generation units offline in the next few months.
In conjunction with this, the risk of unplanned outages which may occur due to the age of Eskom’s fleet of power plants remains high.
Eskom’s latest system status report has shown that there is a high likelihood of load-shedding for the next three months with severe electricity shortages expected.
The utility’s history of load-shedding has already pushed certain households to move away completely from the electricity supplied through the national grid and install self-sufficient solar and battery systems.
However, this is not an option for the average middle-class home, with typical total costs for such a system amounting to anywhere between R100,000 and R200,000, depending on capacity needs.
Fuel-powered generators are one of the cheapest short-term choices for keeping your electricity on while load-shedding occurs.
While a moderately-sized 6.4kW petrol generator can be purchased for R10,999, a battery and inverter system with 6kW output and only 4.8kWh capacity will likely set you back over R50,000.
In addition, rechargeable lithium-ion and deep-cycle lead-acid batteries have to be replaced at a large cost every few years. According to energy expert Chris Yelland, diesel generators cost around R4-R5 per kWh to run.
Bear in mind that while this is much more than the price of electricity from the grid, it should be noted that the generator will only be used for the few hours of load-shedding.
Running costs for petrol generators will be slightly more as the former runs more efficiently.
The primary downside to a generator is the loud noise it makes, particularly non-inverter petrol models, which can be a nuisance to yourself and neighbours.
In addition, generators have to be serviced and maintained in order to perform reliably and should ideally not be run at full load for too long.
The table below shows a comparison of the prices of various petrol and diesel generators that can provide backup power during load-shedding.
We have also included more expensive inverter generators, which operate at lower noise and more efficiently than standard petrol generators. For the sake of affordability, we have only included products priced below R25,000.
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Source: mybroadband