Inverter and battery backup, Vanderbijlpark and the Vaal.
Load shedding is over. The power still goes off. South Africa has had no national load shedding since 16 May 2025. What we still get here are unplanned outages, usually with no warning. So I sell backup for that, and only for that. Gate, fence and alarm battery backup, and small inverter setups sized for your house. Tell me what has to keep running and you get a written price before I start.
I'm not going to scare you about Eskom.
For years every backup system in this country was sold with one story: load shedding. That story is over, and I'm not going to keep telling it to sell you a battery.
The facts, plainly. There has been no national load shedding since 16 May 2025. Eskom's outlook for winter 2026 forecast none at all, on the back of a big cut in unplanned breakdowns. Load shedding is paused, not abolished — Eskom's own medium-term outlook flags supply risk again around 2029 to 2030, so nobody should say it can never return.
One thing is still live in places: load reduction. That's a targeted cut applied to selected areas rather than the whole country, and it was still being scheduled in Gauteng during 2026.
But the outages we actually get here are the unplanned ones, and they arrive without a schedule.
An unplanned outage doesn't come with a schedule, so you can't plan around it. You can only prepare for it.Which is what backup is actually for
The damage happens when it comes back on.
An outage itself rarely breaks anything. The spike when the supply is restored is what kills TVs, decoders, computers, gate boards and inverters.
Here's the part that matters for your pocket. Since 2023 most South African insurers exclude damage caused by the interruption or restoration of supply. They carve out one exception: scheduled, phased load shedding that doesn't affect a whole municipality at once. An unplanned outage is neither scheduled nor phased. So it typically falls outside that carve-out.
Surge claims rose about 80% across SA insurers in three years, and on Santam’s own numbers only about 21% of insured households have surge protection in place. Four in five are unprotected. Santam and King Price both tell homeowners to fit surge protection at the distribution board.
So before you spend serious money on an inverter, spend a few hundred rand of parts at the board. An inverter keeps the lights on. It is not surge protection. They're two different jobs and I'd rather you did the cheap one first.
surge device fitted at the DB board
real job photo · under 120 kB
A device at the board handles induced surges — the spike coming down the street wiring. It will not stop a direct lightning strike on your house, and I won't tell you it will. Southern Gauteng sits in the 10 to 15 lightning flashes per km² per year band, storm season October to March.
Start small. Most people should.
For most Vaal homes the honest answer is the small one: keep the gate, the fence energiser and the alarm panel alive, plus a few lights. It is the cheapest thing on this page and it covers what actually hurts during a two-hour outage — being stuck outside your own gate with a dead perimeter.
Bigger than that, and we're into an inverter and a battery. That is sized and quoted for your house after I've seen what must keep running, because the number depends entirely on your list. That kind of system carries lights, Wi-Fi, a TV, phone chargers and the gate. It does not carry a geyser, a stove, a tumble dryer or a pool pump, and anyone who tells you otherwise is selling you a disappointment.
On a plot or a smallholding with a long driveway, an off-grid solar gate kit sometimes makes more sense than trenching power to the gate. Tell me how far the gate is from the house and I'll price it.
I don't sign off solar. Here's why.
This is the paragraph most electricians leave off their website. I'd rather you read it here than find out later.
First, the certificates. A Certificate of Compliance covers the fixed electrical work in your house, and if the work I do needs one, I'll sort it out. Who signs it is set out in the footer, and you're welcome to phone the Department of Employment and Labour on 051 505 6371 and check the number.
A grid-tied solar system is different. It must be registered with your distributor even if it never exports a single unit. The paperwork includes a valid Certificate of Compliance, an inverter type-test certificate, and an Embedded Generation Installation test report. That test report may only be signed by a registered Installation Electrician or Master Installation Electrician. Nobody else may sign it, and that includes me.
So: for solar PV the sign-off goes to a registered Installation Electrician or PV installer, and I'll tell you straight who is doing which part before anybody starts. I do the electrical work. I don't sell you a sign-off I can't give.
Some jobs I won't take. If it needs a registration I don't hold, you'll hear that on the first WhatsApp — not at your gate, after the callout.Danie du Toit · Vanderbijlpark
Insurers care about this too. They want backup power and solar installed by registered people, and they commonly ask for a valid Certificate of Compliance with its test report. Nobody, including me, can promise you a claim will be paid. What I can do is make sure the paperwork is the paperwork they ask for.
A quick sanity check, so you can spot a fantasy quote. Ask for the inverter size in kW, the battery size in kWh, the panel wattage and the brand of each, itemised. A quote that lists a system as one lump sum with no sizes on it is a quote you cannot compare with anyone else's, and that is usually the point of writing it that way.
Check this before you pay anyone.
Some outages are yours to fix and some belong to the municipality. Reading this can save you a callout fee: R300, waived when you accept the quote.
- Look at the neighbours.
Streetlights and neighbours off too? It's the supply, not your house. Phone the supplier, not an electrician.
Municipal supply: 016 430 1612 · Eskom-supplied areas: 0860 037 566 - Check your prepaid meter.
Display blank or showing an error? That's units finished, a vending fault or a meter fault. Never let anyone "bypass" it — the fines run into tens of thousands, and it's a criminal matter.
Smart meter enquiries: 016 931 0707 - Check your own board.
Main switch or earth leakage down? Switch everything off, reset once. Straight back down? Note which switch moved and what was running. Stop there.
That's my job: WhatsApp me a photo of the board
Before you phone.
Is load shedding coming back?
Power is off. Is it my house or the supply?
What does the gate and fence backup actually run?
Will a small inverter run my geyser or stove?
Do you install solar panels?
Will an inverter protect my appliances from surges?
How long will the gate backup last?
Does backup power need a certificate?
Praat jy Afrikaans?
Tell me what must
stay on.
Gate? Fence? Wi-Fi? A few lights? Send me the list and I'll quote the smallest system that actually does it — not the biggest one I can sell.