I’ve been thinking about installing solar panels, but I’m still unsure if it’s the right decision. I keep wondering do solar panels actually help save money in the long run? The upfront cost seems high, and I’m confused about whether it’s worth the investment. If you’ve installed solar panels, did you notice a significant decrease in your electricity bills? How long did it take for you to recover your investment? I’d love to hear real experiences before making a decision.

My monthly consumption is approximately 500 kWh's, in summer I buy about 25-30 KWh's per month and winter about 100 kWh's 

This will depend in the type of install you want to do.

If your loads are high in the day you can opt for a on grid system without batteries. The upfront is lower.

If your loads are high at night you will nee a lot off batteries making the upfront cost higher.

With both type of installs you will save money in the long run.

With the increase in the electricity price the payback will also increase year by year.

 

I noticed a drop. From, admittedly, a low base as we were using < 450 kWh per month. I'm in Gauteng, which is very overcast at the moment and is going to stay that way for days, so right now system performance is not startling, but most days I manage to generate about 50% of what we use. In sunny weather this gets more like 95%.

It depends on what you buy, how well matched it is to your situation, and how much you can change your routines to make maximum use of the sun. EG we don't run the dishwasher at night, nor the washing machine, nor the pool pump. We  heat water during the day.

What I would change is getting more panels, or more powerful panels. Then I'd be doing better on overcast days.

But sure, they do save on your power spend. I am averaging about 2.3 kWh per day over a year. 

Analyse your tariffs. EG in Johannesburg, on the default tariff, you are going to be paying a grand a month in fixed charges. Those will not fall away if you go solar, though you will reduce the charge for actual electricity.

If you are in South Africa then there is what I call a "soft value" to having an alternate energy source. Even during stage 6 the power was always on in my house. So we were in no danger of losing the contents of the deep freeze; lights and wifi were always on etc. In general we could keep on with our usual routine. That's worth something too. Despite significant improvements, Eskom are warning that we are not out of the load shedding woods yet.

Edited February 19, 20251 yr by Bobster.
clearing up a blaps

It depends

Solar panels (and assuming a battery pack as well) can definitely reduce your reliance on municipal power but as a household there would need to be some changes in how you go about your days and nights. 

Generation assumptions

Lets assume your system is an 8kw inverter, 12x600w panels and 15kWh battery pack - this will go for about 170k at today's prices. On a normal sunny day those panels will generate between 35 and 45 KWh (units) of power when its not so cloudy. When cloudy that amount goes down so we will get between 17.5 and 22.5KWh. So monthly you generate between 510 and 1350 units of electricity

Battery assumptions

Lets also assume that you set your battery to discharge to 50% so approx 7.5kwh of that daily generation will go to recharge the batteries. This leaves you with between 28 and 38 units on a perfect day to use for the house and between 10 and 15 units on a cloudy day

Consumption assumptions

A standard home uses between 15 and 30 units per day. YMMV. Things of course that influence this include heating and cooling, older appliances and lights etc. So per month you are using between 450 and 900 units of electricity. A portion of this usage will be covered by the panels during the day and batteries at night but on cloudy days you may have to draw from the grid.

5 minutes ago, Jacques Ester said:

With both type of installs you will save money in the long run.

With the increase in the electricity price the payback will also increase year by year.

This. You have to take a long term view. It's a classic case of spending money now to save over the long term.

28 minutes ago, Millerdavid said:

I keep wondering do solar panels actually help save money in the long run?

Absolutely will save you money, especially if correctly installed and appropriately spec'd for your requirements.
@Tariq mentions his power purchases, I have about the same result my side summer about 1Unit per day(feedback prevention) and winter about 3Units per day(battery top-up).
Also as @Jacques Ester mentions as the price of power goes up your payback time decreases 🤩

Think carefully about selling back. In SA it will cost you money to do that (cost of new 2-way meter at least, possible change of tariff) and the resell price is not very attractive. Again this will be detailed in the tariffs. Here in Johannesburg I can't see how I would as much as break even - so I don't export.

Also bear in mind that tariffs will change.  Look at the State of California as an example. A few years ago they were offerring very good reseller tariffs and there was a lot of uptake. But resell can also create problems for the utilities, and now California doesn't pay for any electricity fed back into the grid. In COCT they are currently paying above the NERSA tariff for electricity you feed back into the grid, but they got a 2-year exemption from the NERSA tariff. They also got a 2-year waiver on the net consumer requirement (IE you cannot sell more kWh than you buy). They have yet to indicate if they intend to renew those waivers. If they don't, then the position for resellers changes quite a lot.

So download the tariff booklet that applies to you and do the sums.

Edited February 19, 20251 yr by Bobster.

1 hour ago, mzezman said:

It depends

Solar panels (and assuming a battery pack as well) can definitely reduce your reliance on municipal power but as a household there would need to be some changes in how you go about your days and nights. 

Generation assumptions

Lets assume your system is an 8kw inverter, 12x600w panels and 15kWh battery pack - this will go for about 170k at today's prices. On a normal sunny day those panels will generate between 35 and 45 KWh (units) of power when its not so cloudy. When cloudy that amount goes down so we will get between 17.5 and 22.5KWh. So monthly you generate between 510 and 1350 units of electricity

Battery assumptions

Lets also assume that you set your battery to discharge to 50% so approx 7.5kwh of that daily generation will go to recharge the batteries. This leaves you with between 28 and 38 units on a perfect day to use for the house and between 10 and 15 units on a cloudy day

Consumption assumptions

A standard home uses between 15 and 30 units per day. YMMV. Things of course that influence this include heating and cooling, older appliances and lights etc. So per month you are using between 450 and 900 units of electricity. A portion of this usage will be covered by the panels during the day and batteries at night but on cloudy days you may have to draw from the grid.

That is exactly the size of my system and your numbers are 100% correct.

2 hours ago, Millerdavid said:

I’ve been thinking about installing solar panels, but I’m still unsure if it’s the right decision. I keep wondering do solar panels actually help save money in the long run? The upfront cost seems high, and I’m confused about whether it’s worth the investment. If you’ve installed solar panels, did you notice a significant decrease in your electricity bills? How long did it take for you to recover your investment? I’d love to hear real experiences before making a decision.

Be very careful with making this decision. Note below, that Nersa has reportedly now approved the restructuring of Eskom's tariffs into a fixed fee and time-of-use fees, with some other changes. You cannot base your decisions & payback calculations on the people that installed solar before you because the rules of the game have just changed, and we'll only see how the dice land from 1 July onwards.

Nersa approves restructuring of Eskom tariffs - Moneyweb

That being said, if you go about it smartly, know your needs, choose and use your system wisely, it's surely possible to drop your costs now and especially in the long run. If you just slap something in without proper analysis, you could also be wasting lots of money.

Edited February 19, 20251 yr by GreenFields

Installing solar setup for me was not just about the savings on the electricity purchase every month, the benefit to always have power is a huge positive. If your system is roughly specced according to usage and you get the family to work with you on when to use what - you will save alot - every month!!

A solar system is a huge investment, if done correctly - money well spend and worth every cent!

So:

1. It is a saving compared to Eskom/City Power etc who continally put up the price. You would have to calculate what it is over the 25 plus lifespan of your system.

2. A solar system is not an investment but really a prepayment for power with a guarantee that you have a continued supply.

3. At my home if it is sunny I can even run a pool heat pump but it won't cover winter and underfloor.

4. Have I saved considerably? Yes, but now the 500 a month I would use (say to cover the pool heat pump) has nearly doubled so I'll look to add more panels (or just leave the heat pump off).

2 hours ago, Arshad Pahad said:

So

1. A solar system is not an investment but really a prepayment for power with a guarantee that you have a continued suppl

Here I can talk about how you use solar as well as going the totally opposite way you stating.

Doing a grid tied without battery system you can get your money back in under 2.5yrs or like in my case 3 yrs. This gives you a return of 33% now and it goes up every year. You will be hard pressed to find a better investment.

Solar is all about what kind of system and what load profile you have. The piece of mind of no load shedding is no longer the only consideration.

The question is can Solar save you money? YES YES YES.

6 hours ago, Scorp007 said:

The question is can Solar save you money? YES YES YES.

I heartily concur. In September last year I installed a 12kW inverter with 8.05kWp panels, and two 10kWh LiFePO4 batteries - quite an over kill for a normal household of 2 people...

To date, my system has generated a bit over 7.5MWh of power, and has repaid over 21% of the total investment in 15 months. As an added bonus,it has also reduced our carbon footprint by about 7.5 tons of CO2 - not bad for a "non-greeny". The best news is that I am totally off-grid for all practical purposes, only switching on my grid power on Sundays to keep the meter ticking over...

With Eskom's annual increase being way over that of inflation, I am confident that we will break even in less than 4 years from now - giving a tax-free ROI of about 20% per annum - much better than my annuity investment...

Yes, solar does save money in the long run if the system is sized and designed correctly for your usage. Poorly designed systems often disappoint; well-designed ones usually pay for themselves and then keep savings going.

The upfront cost vs long-term reality

Solar isn’t cheap upfront because you’re pre-buying 20–25 years of electricity. Panels typically last 25+ years, inverters 8–15 years, and batteries 10–15 years depending on use. Instead of paying Eskom every month with above-inflation increases, you lock in a large portion of your energy cost on day one.

Real-world bill reduction (what actually happens)

From real installations (including my own and clients’ systems):

Grid-tied, no batteries:

30–60% bill reduction. Payback: 4–7 years

Hybrid with batteries (load-shedding protection):

60–90% reduction in daytime usage. Payback: 6–10 years (Part of the “return” here is reliability, comfort not just rands)

Off-grid:

No bill, but not always the cheapest route. Chosen for independence, farms, or unstable supply.

Payback time – what really determines it

Payback depends mainly on: Your monthly kWh usage. How much power you use during daylight. Local electricity tariff increases. Whether batteries are included. Quality of equipment and installation

A household using 800–1200 kWh/month with good daytime load usually sees payback in 5–8 years.

Batteries: cost vs value

Batteries slow down financial payback, but they: Keep lights on during outages. Protect against future tariff shocks. Increase self-consumption of solar.

Common mistakes that kill savings!!

Oversized inverters with undersized PV. No load shifting (geyser, pool, pumps running at night). Cheap batteries with poor cycle life. No monitoring, problems go unnoticed.

The hidden benefits: Electricity prices never go down. Solar returns improve every single year as tariffs rise.

After payback: Your electricity cost trends toward zero Eskom’s cost trends toward infinite