If you’ve lived in South Africa through the last few years of load-shedding, you already know the drill: check the Eskom or municipal schedule, guess whether it’s accurate today, and plan your evening around whether stage 2 becomes stage 4 without warning. Solar with battery backup is the only way to actually opt out of that guessing game — but sizing it right matters.
What each load-shedding stage actually costs you
Every stage adds roughly 2 hours of outage per day, spread across 4-hour blocks depending on your schedule group:
| Stage | Approx. outage/day | What it typically means |
|---|---|---|
| Stage 2 | 2–4 hrs | One block, usually manageable with lights + wifi backup |
| Stage 4 | 4–6 hrs | Two blocks, fridge/freezer contents at real risk |
| Stage 6 | 6–8+ hrs | Often two overlapping blocks — most of your evening dark |
Why a small inverter + tiny battery isn’t enough
Plenty of households buy an entry-level 1–2kVA backup box expecting it to “handle load-shedding,” then find out the hard way that it can’t run a kettle and a fridge at the same time, and the battery is flat by hour three of a stage 6 outage. Sizing for South African stage 4–6 reality means:
- Enough inverter capacity (kVA) to handle your simultaneous peak load — stove, kettle and geyser running together spike fast
- Enough battery capacity (kWh) to actually last through back-to-back outage blocks, not just one
- Solar panels sized to recharge the battery during daylight before the next outage hits
Grid-tied, hybrid, or fully off-grid?
Most WEnergy installs are hybrid systems — they stay connected to the municipal grid, use solar during the day, switch to battery seamlessly when the grid drops, and can top up from the grid overnight if needed. This gives you the resilience of off-grid without the cost of massively oversizing your battery bank for cloudy weeks. Fully off-grid only makes sense for rural properties with no reliable grid connection at all.
Not sure what size you need?
Tell us your appliances and we’ll recommend the right kit — free, no pressure.