Bad news about solar power prices in South Africa

The big plunge in solar power system prices in South Africa over the past few years could be coming to an end.

Global prices of solar panels, inverters, and batteries dropped sharply in 2023 and 2024, largely due to substantial overproduction in China.

In South Africa, the declines were exacerbated by a market flooded with stock due to overestimates of demand, due to worsening load-shedding.

Eskom’s ability to keep load-shedding at bay for nearly a year from early 2024 cut demand for backup power even more.

With the addressable market shrinking but stock at an all-time high, suppliers and installers were forced to cut prices to try and reinvigorate demand.

MyBroadband previously found that the cost of a Solar Advice system for taking an entry-level home off-grid had dropped by over 20% between January 2024 and November 2024.

The price cuts were even greater for larger systems, with one capable of producing 40kWh per day dropping from over R500,000 to under R350,000 — a decline of around a third.

As of June 2025, the pricing of the identical Solar Advice systems were the same as in November 2024, suggesting the end of the reductions may have come.

In October 2024, major alternative energy distributor Rubicon and solar power installer AWPower told MyBroadband they expected the price cuts would level off by the middle of this year.”

“The big anomaly at the moment is that there is still a lot of residential stock in the market with all of the suppliers,” said Rubicon Energy managing director Greg Blandford.”

“If we can send a message to the public: This is a prime opportunity to buy because it’s probably the lowest price point you’ll ever see.”

Blandford explained that the demand at the time suggested the market was in a type of reset, which would see a return to more price stability and potential increases from the middle of 2025.

AWPower managing director Christiaan Hattingh said the introduction of new products would see prices pick up again during the year.

Prices stabilising and production tightening on a global level

There also appears to be much greater price stability in solar power components on an international level, according to data from China tracked by Green Building Africa and BloombergNEF.

Green Building Africa’s analysis of the Chinese Module Marker index found that solar module prices saw slight upward momentum in early 2025, partly due to reduced polysilicon production.

In addition, the market is undergoing consolidation with non-Tier 1 manufacturers on the decline, which could see prices climb sharply by late 2025.

BloombergNEF’s data showed that lithium-ion battery prices plunged 20% between 2023 and 2024 to reach $115 per kWh. However, it expects this will only decline further by another 3% in 2025.

A slight increase in the future price is also possible due to geopolitical tensions, tariffs, and stalled mining and refining projects.

In the table below, MyBroadband has configured four off-grid systems using SolarAdvice’s calculator for households with four different monthly average consumptions.

Going fully off-grid requires oversizing your solar panel array and battery capacity to roughly two or three times what you would normally need for a 90% off-grid system.

This is to compensate for prolonged periods without sunshine, which are common during the summer in the northern parts of the country and winter in the south.

For the systems below, we used an oversize factor of 2.5 relative to the typical panel and battery capacity required.