SA PV Solar Solutions
Fairview, Gauteng
5 (3)
City of Johannesburg Metropolitan Municipality
Solar installers in Johannesburg, Gauteng
10 businesses serving Johannesburg, and the local arithmetic behind their quotes: Johannesburg averages 5.5 kWh/m²/day, so a 5 kW array here makes about 17.2 kWh on a June day and 7 829 kWh across the year.
How much sun Johannesburg actually gets
Solar quotes are usually written against a national average, and the national average is wrong almost everywhere. Johannesburg averages 5.5 kWh per square metre per day across the year, but the figure that decides whether your system disappoints you is the June one: 4.4, against 6.4 in December. That means a mid-winter day here still delivers about 69% of what a mid-summer day does. Compared with Upington, the sunniest town in this directory, an array in Johannesburg needs to be roughly 13% larger to generate the same number of units in a year.
Annual daily average
5.5
kWh/m²/day
June daily average
4.4
sizes your winter
December daily average
6.4
your best case
Irradiance figures are regional averages of global horizontal irradiance from the published South African solar resource maps. They describe the area, not your specific roof - pitch, orientation and shading can move a real installation 20% either way, which is what a site survey is for.
What installers hit locally in Johannesburg
Johannesburg has the best winter-to-summer balance of the big metros: June still delivers around 80 percent of the December figure, so a Johannesburg system carries a steadier share of the bill year-round than a Cape Town one of the same size. City Power requires registration of any embedded generation and an approved bi-directional meter, and has been actively auditing unregistered installations. Highveld summer hail is the underrated risk: confirm the panel carries a hail impact rating and that the household insurer has been told the array exists.
Your tariff and your approval both come from City of Johannesburg Metropolitan Municipality
Johannesburg households are billed by City of Johannesburg Metropolitan Municipality rather than by Eskom, so the rand-per-unit on your bill is set by the municipality's approved tariff schedule and not by the national Homepower rates you will see quoted in most solar articles. That also means any grid-tied inverter has to be registered with City of Johannesburg Metropolitan Municipality and, in most cases, fitted with an approved bi-directional meter before it is legal to run. Ask any installer quoting you to name the registration process they will follow and whether the fee is inside or outside their quoted price - an install that skips it is the installer's shortcut and the homeowner's liability.
What each system size produces in Johannesburg
The table below applies the Johannesburg irradiance figures to the four system configurations most commonly quoted in South Africa. Generation is what the array makes; the saving column counts only the share you actually consume, because most municipalities pay little or nothing for units you export.
| System | Summer day | Winter day | Per year | Monthly saving | Installed cost | Payback |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3 kW grid-tied, no batteryCutting a daytime-heavy bill. Gives you nothing during an outage. | 15.0 kWh | 10.3 kWh | 4 698 kWh | R662 - R967 | R55 000 - R80 000 | 4.7 - 10.1 yrs |
| 5 kW hybrid with 5 kWh batteryLights, plugs, WiFi, TV and a fridge through a typical outage. | 25.0 kWh | 17.2 kWh | 7 829 kWh | R1 561 - R2 281 | R110 000 - R160 000 | 4.0 - 8.5 yrs |
| 8 kW hybrid with 10 kWh batteryA family home keeping most circuits live, geyser excluded. | 39.9 kWh | 27.5 kWh | 12 527 kWh | R2 497 - R3 649 | R170 000 - R240 000 | 3.9 - 8.0 yrs |
| 10 kW hybrid with 15 kWh batteryWhole-home backup including heavy loads, or a small business. | 49.9 kWh | 34.3 kWh | 15 659 kWh | R3 121 - R4 562 | R220 000 - R320 000 | 4.0 - 8.5 yrs |
Assumptions, so you can argue with them
Generation = system kW × local irradiance × 0.78 performance ratio, which allows for inverter and cable losses, panel temperature derating, soiling and imperfect roof orientation. Savings count 65% of generation as self-consumed for systems without a battery and 92% for systems with one, valued at R2.60 to R3.80 per unit - the realistic spread across South African municipal and Eskom residential tariffs. Payback is simple payback and assumes electricity prices never rise again, which they will, so treat it as the pessimistic end. It excludes finance costs, maintenance and inverter replacement at roughly year 12. Divide your own bill by your own units to get the rate that applies to you, then rerun the sum in the cost calculator.
What the Johannesburg installer market looks like
These figures are counted across the 10 businesses we hold data for in Johannesburg. They describe the local market rather than any single company, and they are the fastest way to tell whether a quote you have been given is normal for this town or an outlier.
2.6
Median Google rating across 9 rated businesses
262
Public reviews behind those ratings
40%
Publish at least one certification (4 of 10)
30%
Offer financing (3 of 10)
Inverter brands installed locally
- SMA2 of 10
- Sunsynk2 of 10
- Victron2 of 10
- Axpert1 of 10
- Delta1 of 10
Battery brands installed locally
- Sunsynk2 of 10
- Victron2 of 10
- BlueNova1 of 10
- Deye1 of 10
- Dyness1 of 10
Panel brands installed locally
- Canadian Solar1 of 10
- Jinko Solar1 of 10
- Tier 11 of 10
Brand concentration matters more than it looks. Where one inverter brand dominates a town, local spares and someone who knows the firmware are easy to find, and a warranty claim is a phone call. Where you are the only household on an unusual brand, you are the one waiting for a part to be imported. If a Johannesburg quote proposes a brand that appears nowhere in the list above, ask who services it locally before you sign.
Suburbs and areas covered from Johannesburg
Businesses on this page give their base as one of the following. They are listed together because a Johannesburg installer will quote across the metro, and splitting them by suburb would only hide options from you.
Fairview
Solar installers serving Johannesburg (10)
Ordered by claim status, then rating, then review volume. A claimed listing means the business has confirmed its own details with us; an unclaimed one is compiled from public sources and may be out of date, which we flag on the profile rather than hide.
Unclaimed
Solar Africa Giants
Fairview, Gauteng
4.2 (5)
Just Solar
Johannesburg, Gauteng
3 (2)
Brands: Deye, Growatt, Mecer
Sustainable.co.za
Johannesburg, Gauteng
2.8 (34)
Brands: Axpert, Delta, Sunsynk
Revov
Johannesburg, Gauteng
2.6 (5)
Brands: LiFePO4, Revov
Greenspark Solar
Johannesburg, Gauteng
2.3 (26)
Voltex Solar
Johannesburg, Gauteng
2.2 (106)
SunSynk
Johannesburg, Gauteng
1.7 (45)
Brands: Sunsynk, Sunsynk
Sinetech
Johannesburg, Gauteng
1.7 (36)
Brands: GoodWe, OutBack, SMA
Enfin Energy Finance
Fairview, Gauteng
Solar in Johannesburg: common questions
Installed prices in Johannesburg follow the national bands: roughly R55,000 to R80,000 for a 3 kW grid-tied array with no battery, R110,000 to R160,000 for a 5 kW hybrid with 5 kWh of storage, and R170,000 to R240,000 for an 8 kW hybrid with 10 kWh. The spread inside each band is mostly battery chemistry, inverter brand and roof complexity, not installer greed - a tile roof with three planes and a long cable run genuinely costs more to do properly than a single-plane IBR roof. What changes locally is not the price but the return: at 5.5 kWh/m²/day, a 5 kW array in Johannesburg generates about 7 829 kWh a year, and that is the number that decides your payback.
This directory currently lists 10 businesses operating in or serving Johannesburg. That is not every installer in town - it is the ones we hold verifiable contact and service data for, plus those who have claimed their own listing. Coverage is strongest in the metros and thinnest in smaller towns, where many installers work from a neighbouring city rather than locally. If you own a solar business here and are not listed, you can claim or add a listing free.
A June day in Johannesburg averages 4.4 kWh/m²/day against an annual average of 5.5. That is the single most important number in a quote and the one most often left out. If an installer sizes your array on the annual average, it will meet your expectations for eight months and miss them for four - and the four it misses are the cold, dark months when your consumption is highest. Ask for the winter generation figure explicitly, in kWh per day, and check it against the number above.
Yes, for anything grid-tied. City of Johannesburg Metropolitan Municipality requires embedded generation to be registered and, in most cases, an approved bi-directional meter fitted before the system is commissioned. Installers vary enormously in whether they handle this or quietly leave it to you - ask directly, get the answer in writing, and confirm whether the registration and meter fees sit inside or outside the quoted price. An unregistered grid-tied system is a live insurance and compliance problem that surfaces at the worst possible moment.
They solve different problems. Panels without a battery cut your bill during daylight and do nothing at all during an outage - the inverter shuts down for safety the moment the grid drops. A battery buys you continuity through load shedding and lets you use evening generation, which is why the saving column for hybrid systems is proportionally higher despite the same array. The honest test is what you are actually buying: if your electricity bill is the problem, panels first is the better rand-for-rand answer. If the problem is that the power goes off, no quantity of panels solves it without storage.
Insist that every quote states the same six things and you can compare them in minutes: panel make, model and quantity; inverter make and model; battery make, usable kWh and warranted cycles; whether a Certificate of Compliance is included; who files the embedded generation registration; and the estimated generation in kWh per day in June, not just an annual or summer figure. Quotes that give you a rand total and a system size and nothing else are not quotes, they are prices - and they are almost always hiding either a thin battery warranty or an unregistered install.
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