Most people assume I always planned to go off-grid.
The truth? I didn’t.
Like thousands of South Africans during the worst years of loadshedding, I only wanted one thing: a reliable backup system so my home and business could stay operational. Independence wasn’t the goal, continuity was.
But once you start solving your own power problems, you begin to see the bigger picture:
During that crisis period, people bought whatever they could find. Stock was limited, advice was inconsistent, and urgency drove most decisions. Many of the systems that failed didn’t fail because the equipment was bad – they failed because the solution didn’t match the lifestyle or the electrical infrastructure was not configured for the solar/battery solutions implemented.
That realisation changed everything for me.
If I wanted to guide clients properly – and protect my own home – I needed more than backup power.
I needed a method
Today, before recommending a single product, I start by mapping and tracing how a home actually uses electricity – behaviour, circuitry, peak times, essential loads vs heavy loads. It removes the guesswork and the hype. It turns reaction into strategy.
That first backup system set me on a path I didn’t expect.
And now, years later, I’m sharing my own move toward full grid independence – openly and in real time – so homeowners can make informed decisions without pressure or confusion.
This is where the journey begins.
Follow along – it gets interesting from here.
At the moment, there’s a noticeable trend in the issues I’m being called out for and often, it comes back to solar system design. More
The conversation I’m having with homeowners right now. One of the interesting things about being an electrician is that you start to notice patterns in
When I started sharing my off-grid journey, I never expected it to become quite so emotional or controversial. Right now, though, things feel like they’ve come to a standstill. I’ve done what I can, followed the processes, asked the questions, and pushed where it made sense to push. For the moment, all that’s left is to wait and see what the next move from City Power and the City of Johannesburg will be.
What non-vending customers need to know.
By now, I thought I’d be off the grid.
Instead, I’ve walked through the doors of City Power and the City of Johannesburg nine times.
I never planned to disconnect from the grid until a recent policy shift changed everything. City Power announced an obligatory conversion for certain prepaid and
South Africans often think “an inverter is an inverter.”
Not true.
Here are the three types – simply explained:
