Write to us and you might win… Your letters make us smile.

I thoroughly enjoy the magazine and always turn to the letters section first to see comments from the other readers. I read Ian Gilmour’s letter in the recent March issue regarding going offgrid and, although I mostly agree with him, I also have some things I disagree with. I’ve made a few points to elaborate on my thinking:

1. The initial cost of the equipment: Yes, currently this is still high, however, by shopping around, we have been able to install

2 × 5 kVA/4 000 W gridtied hybrid inverters with 14 × 400 W panels and

12 × 250 Ah batteries.

The current from this allows us full autonomy from Eskom for up to 23 hours a day. There are also new companies emerging that do free installation, and the client pays them per kWh or on a rent-to-own basis.

2. and 3. Maintenance and expensive replacements: Any system, whether it’s Eskom, solar, wind, or gas will have maintenance-related costs. We opted for the cheapest tech on the market – lead-acid batteries, Green Zone Energy inverters and affordable solar panels. We have also insured the whole system under our household policy.

4. Cost of alternatives: We’ve combined our solar system with a solar-electric geyser that can be switched to a gas geyser if need be. We also use both gas and electric cooking facilities. There are South African companies that can install bio-digesters, which are able to fuel gas appliances (apparently a very simple concept). The solar-electric geyser will soon sport a new 12 V element that will bring the cost on that aspect down as well.

5. Quantity of storage needed: Here I fully agree with Ian – if you truly want to be off-grid, you will need a lot of battery storage. I, however, looked at it from a different angle, instead focusing on changing our lifestyle habits a bit. We adjust our consumption and use only what needs to be used. We have also installed solar lights inside and outside our house to function autonomously from our main installation. All other lights are low-consumption LEDs. By using our hot water sparingly, we have saved not only electricity, but a significant volume of water as well.

By making a few small adjustments and planning our system thoroughly in advance, we are now able to run two houses containing five inhabitants on our simple system. Like Ian, I am no expert, but I’m blessed with a fair degree of common sense and a good dab of paranoia. This meant that I really did my homework beforehand. In the end, our whole system ended up costing us about R185 000.

My advice to people wanting to go off-grid is to do thorough research. Get an electrician in to measure and calculate your actual usage, then install a system that provides at least 1.5 times more than that figure. It can be done.

THEO VAN ROOYEN

I’m pleased to admit that I felt a lot more positive after reading your comments than Ian’s,

Theo. You’ve given me (and many others, I’m sure) hope that a (relatively) affordable off-grid system is achievable for the conventional urban home, with a few lifestyle adjustments thrown in, of course. In our house, we’ve discovered that these small adjustments are definitely possible and, after a little discomfort, they soon become a part of everyday life – such as drastically cutting household water consumption since the near-calamitous drought in Cape Town nearly three years ago. Congratulations – your letter has won you a beautiful set of NAREX Richter chisels worth R6 449. – Mark, Editor