51 minutes ago, Mattyboy said:

It's been a while, anyone got some interesting findings ie greater than expected savings (if so what have you attributed it to) or less savings than expected? Curious to see how others have maximized savings.

My consumption is perhaps lower than most, given that it's just my wife and I (kids are both married and in their own homes...), but I have saved just over R50 000.00 since September 2024 with no planned feedback into the grid (no selling back to the grid). Stats for 2025 full year:

• PV generated - 5513kWh

• Load - 4033kWh

• Purchased from grid - 148.9kWh

PV generated and Load consumed has increased about 25% in 2026 since going functionally off-grid, and installing some air conditioners. Grid power used has dropped to only 20.3kWh for the first 4 months of 2026, extrapolating to 60.9kWh for the full year.

I have my grid supply switched off for most of the week, only switching it on every Sunday for a few hours just to keep the municipal meter ticking over, and 2-3 times this year when rain + cloud conditions persisted for more than 2 days.

Edited April 25Apr 25 by HennieL

I have had about R36k savings in two years. October last year I added a second 5kWh battery. This saved me about R300 per month in the summer months. Looks like the sun is running out now in April. Below is last year's generation.

On 2026/04/25 at 8:05 PM, HennieL said:

My consumption is perhaps lower than most, given that it's just my wife and I (kids are both married and in their own homes...), but I have saved just over R50 000.00 since September 2024 with no planned feedback into the grid (no selling back to the grid). Stats for 2025 full year:

• PV generated - 5513kWh

• Load - 4033kWh

• Purchased from grid - 148.9kWh

PV generated and Load consumed has increased about 25% in 2026 since going functionally off-grid, and installing some air conditioners. Grid power used has dropped to only 20.3kWh for the first 4 months of 2026, extrapolating to 60.9kWh for the full year.

I have my grid supply switched off for most of the week, only switching it on every Sunday for a few hours just to keep the municipal meter ticking over, and 2-3 times this year when rain + cloud conditions persisted for more than 2 days.

Dangerous for me to extrapolate forward.

Jan 2kwh, Feb 11kwh, Mar 22 and Apr 24 and 2 days to go of grid use.

We have had too many very clouded days. 😁

1 hour ago, Scorp007 said:

We have had too many very clouded days. 😁

You can say that again...

This

Instead of this

55 minutes ago, HennieL said:

You can say that again...

This

Instead of this

Then on top of it I shot myself in the foot after I switched of my PV 1 evening during an electric storm and forgot to switch it on the next morning. Bad to get old.

Time for winter sun now already...today was a good day though after the clouds and rain in recent weeks.

I am saving around R2200 per month

Some updates on my system thats now 1 year and 6 months old.

After adding in another battery, my yearly saving increased by roughly R2500 and my ROI decreased.

Originally, my ROI was at 6.93 years, and has since decreased to 5.17.

Total system cost - R77285.40
Saving over this 12 month period - R14931.14

1 minute ago, Bl4d3 said:

Some updates on my system thats now 1 year and 6 months old.

After adding in another battery, my yearly saving increased by roughly R2500 and my ROI decreased.

Originally, my ROI was at 6.93 years, and has since decreased to 5.17.

Total system cost - R77285.40
Saving over this 12 month period - R14931.14

Very nice!

My saving this year will be 36000 rand. Will be paying off my system next year in June. A bit over 2 years payback.