Quick answer
Grid-tied solar without a battery shuts down completely during load shedding. This is deliberate: anti-islanding protection stops your system energising a line that utility workers believe is dead. It surprises a lot of people who assumed panels alone would keep the lights on. Hybrid solar — panels plus battery plus a hybrid inverter — keeps powering essential loads right through an outage.
What you can do now
- 1Check whether your system is grid-tied or hybrid; the inverter model tells you
- 2If it is grid-tied only, ask an installer what adding a battery would involve
- 3Understand that anti-islanding is a safety requirement, not a fault or a limitation to be bypassed
- 4Confirm what your inverter does at the moment of grid loss before you rely on it
- 5Factor essential-loads wiring into any hybrid upgrade
When to call a professional
Specify hybrid topology from the start if load-shedding immunity is what you want. Retrofitting a battery to a grid-tied system sometimes means replacing the inverter entirely, which is an expensive way to discover the difference. An installer should confirm City Power approval requirements for grid-tied systems and include the Electrical COC in the quote.
Typical cost in Johannesburg
Hybrid 5kW system R150,000–R220,000
Indicative ranges only. We provide written, itemised quotes before any work.
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