Is back-up power a solution to South Africa's energy crisis?

The current energy crisis in South Africa, coupled with the decreasing cost for energy storage systems, will see the market for back-up power as a replacement for diesel generation and solar PV hybrid increase.

What is the payback period for energy storage?

The payback is depends on the size of the storage system. The system size depends on the type of services that need to run during load shedding. In this model the payback period is only based on the solar yield of the system and not any of the stacked benefits that can be extracted from energy storage use cases.

How can energy storage reduce load shedding?

These solutions are usually in the form of a hybrid mini grid where there is renewable generation (usually solar PV), diesel generation and battery storage coupled as a system (see this case study). There has also been an increase in high income residential and business installing energy storage systems to curb the impact of load shedding.