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Comment by toomuchtodo | Hacker News Reader

Very much so. Those who can afford it are going to go solar and batteries as soon as they can, and those who can't will be exposed to this low level of electrical service until solar and battery cost declines meet them at their socioeconomic level. The resulting system will be more resilient end state, but the process is going to suck to get there.

The average house in South Africa uses 967 kWh of electricity per month. That's roughly a 5kw-6kw system, or 12-15 400W solar panels + inverters. Payback period at current prices is ~6-7 years.

https://www.myggsa.co.za/how-much-electricity-does-a-househo...

https://www.handymanhomes.co.za/energy-saving/how-much-will-...

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> The average house in South Africa uses 967 kWh of electricity per month. That's roughly a 5kw-6kw system, or 12-15 solar panels + inverters.

... what? That's 11.000 kWh a year. Even in Germany, with water heating by electricity (which is rare because it's just so inefficient), homes rarely hit 6.000 kWh.

[1] https://www.energie.web.de/ratgeber/verbrauch/stromverbrauch...

Houses in South Africa are (on average) 1) bigger, and 2) poorly insulated.

Also, way less efficient hot water cylinders

For a whole house that sounds reasonable? I’m at 4200 kWh a year with only 2 people in a 60 m² apartment. Durchlauferhitzer, but still.

The link you posted even mentions a range of 14,000 - 28,000 kWh for houses not built for efficiency.

> water heating by electricity [...] is rare because it's just so inefficient

Entirely depends on the number of accommodation units per building, installation and ongoing maintenance cost of heaters and metering equipment, availability of gas and/or district heating, etc. It's certainly uneconomical to send heated water through expensive copper pipes in a building inhabited by only two singles when it's needed only for a shower in the morning, yet has to be kept running for hygienic reasons the remainder of the day.

South Africans are used to cheap electricity historically. Our usage is quite high, even after we moved overseas....

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