Eskom increases solar hot water system rebates

Eskom has more than doubled its rebates for solar hot water systems. The change is effective for systems billed after 11 Jan. The new rebates significantly improve the economics of having a system fitted. Eskom have also improved the web page listing the various systems, making it easier to search by province or system attributes.

The cheapest listed system (after installation and rebate) now costs only R2035, although that is a 75 litre low pressure system. There are lots of systems available with an installed cost of less than R10k. You can find links to the information on Eskom's demand side management site.

I have pulled the figures into Excel and plotted total cost against rebate (which is a measure of performance of the system), to highlight the best value systems.

The nine best value systems are highlighted on the graph. Cheaper/smaller systems are lower and left on the graph, bigger/more expensive are higher and right. Details for the nine systems are below. You can look them up on the Eskom website for more info.

You can access the full spreadsheet on Google Docs here.

Come on South Africa, this deal is sweet enough. Fit solar and start doing your bit for the environment and your pocket.