Generators are noisy, you have to turn them off and on, you have to constantly top up with diesel, they are high maintenance and also pollute the atmosphere (CO2 emissions).

You will need a system consisting of Photo Voltaic (PV) panels, batteries, and an inverter that can cater for the demand of your house. Remember that every home is different and depending on size and age the solutions may differ slightly.

A kilowatt is the instantaneous use of power at any given time that you are using in your home or business. A kilowatt hour is the unit of electricity that the utility (e.g. – Eskom) charges you for. This is equivalent to the average kilowatts per hour that you draw in your home.

A solar panel converts the suns energy into usable power for your home appliances.

Find out about Grid-tied systems; Grid-Interactive with battery backup systems; and Off-grid Systems on our solar energy systems page

A battery is used to store the energy produced by the sun so it can be used at a later time (e.g. – at night or during load shedding/power cuts).

Depending on battery technology as well as how the battery is used on a daily basis your battery can last anywhere between 2 years and 10 years.

Depending on the thickness of the cloud cover, a solar system will still be able to produce some power on a cloudy day (reduced capacity). This is also why batteries are an important purchase as they store energy for use when the panels aren’t functioning at full capacity.

PV stands for Photo Voltaic, which is the conversion of photons to electrons (the sun’s energy converting to electricity).

The amount of power that a solar system produces is directly related to the capacity of the panels on your roof. For example if you have 1 kilowatt array of panels you would be able to produce on average 5.5 kilowatt hours per day throughout the year.

For every millimetre of rain you can potentially gather 1 litre per square metre of roof/catchment area.

Grey water is used water from baths, showers, bathroom basins and washing machines. It is not fit for consumption in your house unless filtered correctly. Generally this is not recommended. The water is best utilized in an irrigation system.