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Thanks Dave. Yes, many South Africans are now tuning into alternative sources of energy. We have no choice, really.

There is NO NEED to suffer without electricity! I built my own solar system. Learned what I needed by watching YouTube free videos (dozens and dozens of them), and the total cost was under $2,000 for my little 4 solar panel set up. It does not power my more power hungry appliances, but it does power less power hungry gear and it certainly makes power outages less uncomfortable. If your electrical blackouts are temporary/intermitant and no more than 3 or 4 days in duration, you can get by with a couple 12V DC AGM batteries, a battery charger, and an inverter. With these three things, all you have to do is every few weeks top off your batteries when you do have access to electric power. The batteries and inverter will power all but your most power hungry appliances. Might handle a small air conditioner, but even if it does not, it can easily handle electric fans. An even cheaper alternative is just one 12V DC battery, a battery charger, and DC appliances that run directly off the DC battery (without an intermediary inverter). I buy my inexpensive DC lights, DC fans, and little DC refridgerators from Amazon.com

Ouch! Commiserations. Hope that things improve for you folks in SA. Our privatised electricity networks were not looking too flash either until the Australian federal (or is it feral?) government stepped in last year and read the riot act to the big electricity generators and sellers. The price of gas and coal here have skyrocketed due to the war in Ukraine and the generators claimed that they were loosing money on making electricity and some (not all) were seeking outages. Whilst our energy costs are not as bad as say the UK and parts of Europe, the annual price increases are never-the-less severe enough.