Before you commit to a solar and battery system, the most important question isn’t the price — it’s “what will it actually run, and for how long?” Here’s an honest, practical breakdown based on the 12kW system we’re currently offering as a winter special, built around the Luxpower SNA12000 inverter, 3 × Hina ESS Hi-5 batteries, and 12 × 620W solar panels.

First, the numbers that matter

• Solar generation: 12 × 620W panels = 7,440W peak output. In Pretoria’s climate (averaging 5.5 peak sun hours per day), that’s roughly 35–40kWh generated on a good sunny day.
• Battery storage: 3 × Hina ESS Hi-5 = 15.36kWh total capacity, with around 13.8kWh usable at 90% depth of discharge. Think of this as your “night tank” — what keeps your home running after the sun goes down or when the grid drops.
• Inverter: The Luxpower SNA12000 handles up to 12kW of load continuously, which covers a fully loaded family home including air conditioning.

What your home can run — and for how long

Here’s how the most common household appliances stack up against this system. The “battery hours” column assumes you’re drawing from stored battery only (no solar input) — realistically, during daylight hours your solar panels will be topping the batteries up at the same time, extending everything significantly.

Lights

A typical LED bulb draws around 10W. Light up 20 rooms at once and you’re using 200W total — barely a dent. On battery alone, you could run your entire home’s lighting for 60–70 hours. In practice, lights are essentially free on this system.

Fridge and freezer

A modern fridge-freezer combo averages around 150–200W when the compressor is running, but it cycles on and off — effective draw is closer to 80–100W average. Two units running simultaneously averages around 200W total. Battery runtime: 60+ hours. Your food stays cold through any outage.

Wi-Fi router and TV

A router draws around 10–15W, a large LED TV around 100–150W. Running both together: roughly 160W. Battery runtime for both: 80+ hours. These are the two things most people miss most during load shedding — this system treats them as background noise.

Geyser

This is the big one. A standard 3kW geyser element draws 3,000W while heating. The smart approach with a solar system is to set the geyser to heat during peak solar hours (10am–2pm), when your panels are generating more than enough to cover it without touching the batteries. Heating a 150L geyser from cold takes roughly 2–3 hours of element running time. Once up to temperature, a well-insulated geyser holds heat for hours. If you run it off battery only: roughly 4.5 hours before the batteries are significantly drawn down — so daytime solar heating is always the better call.

Microwave and kettle

A microwave draws around 1,000–1,500W, a kettle around 2,000W. These are short-burst, high-draw appliances — they don’t run for long, so their real impact is low. Boiling a full kettle uses about 0.15kWh. You could boil the kettle 90 times on a full battery. Run the microwave for 10 minutes a day and you’d barely register it.

Washing machine

A washing machine draws 500–2,000W depending on the cycle and heating element. A full cold-wash cycle uses around 0.5kWh; a hot wash uses 1–2kWh. Best practice: run washing during solar peak hours. Battery runtime for a single cold-wash cycle: immediate, using only 3–4% of stored capacity.

Air conditioning

A 12,000 BTU (1-ton) split unit draws around 1,000–1,200W. A larger 18,000 BTU unit draws around 1,600–1,800W. Running a single unit off battery: 8–12 hours. Two units simultaneously: 4–6 hours. During the day with solar supplementing, you can run air conditioning continuously without meaningful battery drain — Pretoria’s summer sun more than covers it.

Gate motor and security systems

Gate motors draw 200–400W briefly during operation. Security cameras, alarm systems, and electric fence energisers average 20–50W continuous. These are negligible loads — your security keeps running indefinitely on this system without any meaningful battery impact.

Pool pump

A standard pool pump draws 750–1,500W. Running an 8-hour daily cycle on battery alone would use 6–12kWh — a large chunk of storage. The right call: schedule pool pump hours during peak solar (10am–3pm) so solar drives it directly. Running a 1kW pool pump for 6 hours during solar peak uses effectively zero battery.

A realistic full-home scenario

Here’s what a typical Pretoria family home draws in an evening (6pm–11pm, no solar input, batteries only):

• Lights (10 rooms): 100W
• Fridge + freezer: 200W
• TV + Wi-Fi: 160W
• Security system: 40W
• Phone/laptop charging: 100W
• Microwave (occasional): 100W averaged
• 1 × air conditioner: 1,200W

Total: approximately 1,900W. At that load, your 13.8kWh of usable battery runs for over 7 hours — 6pm through to well past 1am — before the batteries need replenishing. By 7am the next morning, your solar panels have already started restoring charge for the day ahead.

The bottom line

A 12kW system isn’t just “backup power” — it’s effectively energy independence for a family home in Pretoria. The grid becomes the backup, not your primary source. And because a Certificate of Compliance is issued on every Anictom installation, your system is properly documented for your insurer and future property buyers from day one.

Our winter special pricing of R99 500 incl. VAT (supplied and installed) is valid until 31 August 2026, subject to stock availability.