Izak Van Heerden

Every solar quote in this country ends at the same place. Panels, inverter, battery, certificate of compliance, sign here. Almost nobody hands you the second half of the arithmetic, which is what happens in year eight when the pack that cost you a third of the system budget is quietly delivering two thirds of what it used to. If you are still at the planning stage, our breakdown of the more affordable way to go solar in South Africa covers how to size the system in the first place. This piece is about what happens to it afterwards.

There is a genre of video doing the rounds at the moment that promises you free electricity from dirt. The formula is always the same. A folksy old man on a farm somewhere, a suppressed government document with an invented reference number, a hardware list under a hundred dollars, and a cliffhanger before the build instructions that conveniently sits behind a paid manual. The claim is that twelve copper and zinc electrodes buried in your yard will run your workshop lights, your USB chargers and your security cameras indefinitely, and that the utility industry has spent two centuries hiding this from you.