As news breaks of South Africa’s newly secured $1,5-billion World Bank infrastructure loan – of which a portion will go towards electricity infrastructure – and Eskom continues to celebrate 400+ days without load shedding, a crisis is slowly brewing in the homes and at the businesses of South Africans who were forced to build their own power backup systems.
While huge capital injections promise long-term macroeconomic reforms and much-vaunted grid upgrades over the coming years, this, alongside celebrations about the absence of load shedding need to be tempered and read against ongoing load reduction and repeated power failures around the country as a result of crumbling local infrastructure, says Lance Dickerson, MD of REVOV, a leading supplier of lithium storage batteries and energy backup systems. It’s to this backdrop that people need to be made aware of a ticking timebomb that is about to detonate.
The Battery Bonanza
Load shedding started many years ago, before the 2010 World Cup. There were various peaks such as around the middle of the last decade, again during the pandemic and then the nightmare scenario we all endured between 2022 and 2023. It was a bonanza for battery suppliers as South Africans scrambled to install solar systems with battery backup or uninterrupted power supply systems – both in their homes and, critically, in their businesses.
The result is that we are on the edge of an unprecedented wall of expiring battery warranties. While many suppliers offer 10-year warranties, many batteries were sold with five-year warranties during the last crisis, accepted out of desperation. A significant percentage of the public will soon be left with no option but to replace their entire systems due to a lack of real, after-sales support.
A Ticking Time Bomb
Dickerson says that various research sources and assessments in the industry estimate that South Africa’s privately funded energy grid comprises over 500,000 residential and 15,000 commercial and industrial (C&I) installations. These, he says, are sitting on a time bomb because more than 60% of the 27 battery brands operating in the country offer weak post-sale repair pathways or have no real presence in the country.
Addressing the disconnect between national headlines and on-the-ground realities, Dickerson says newly secured infrastructure loans and landmark celebrations about months and years without official loadshedding mean nothing to businesses facing localised infrastructure collapse.
“Every South African will celebrate the fact that the state has secured a $1,5-billion loan to unbundle Transnet and reform bulk water and energy over the next decade,” says Dickerson. “And yes, nationwide official load-shedding has all but ended, notwithstanding the open cycle gas turbines guzzling millions of litres of diesel. But ask any business owner dealing with localised ‘load reduction’, municipal cable theft, collapsing substations and exploding neighborhood transformers and they will tell you local power cuts haven’t stopped. That’s the reality on the ground and now 60% of those who have invested in their own, clean backup are waking up to the reality that if their battery fails they have little to no local support. Just a week ago, the area that houses our offices and warehouse was inexplicably out of power for three straight business days. REVOV runs a battery business and so we had more than sufficient backup power, but spare a thought for other businesses.”
There is a misconception that the battery boom only happened around 2022 to 2023. That’s when the opportunists joined the market, but load shedding started over a decade ago. The early adopters who built backup power systems ten years ago have hit, or are near to hitting, the end of their 10-year battery warranty windows. At the same time, the frantic surge during the peak outages of 2022 saw thousands of batteries imported and sold on shorter five-year warranties or basic installer guarantees. That 2022 wave is now rapidly approaching its four-and-five-year marks. Over the next 12 to 24 months, a massive volume of South Africa’s energy storage assets will cross into out-of-warranty territory.
Dickerson explains that estimates suggest that only about 15% of battery storage brands operating in South Africa maintain dedicated, industry-leading repair infrastructure. The remaining 85%, he says, largely treat complex lithium storage systems like disposable consumer electronics. When an internal component, such as a Battery Management System (BMS) or communication interface fails out of warranty, imported brands frequently offer no replacement parts or local repair centres, forcing consumers to scrap the entire system.
Buy Smart not Cheap
“Many people are unfortunately waking up to the reality that if they buy an imported battery with zero local engineering presence, they aren’t saving money, they are just deferring a massive replacement cost,” laments Dickerson. “People and businesses were desperate at the time and those in it for a quick buck jumped at the opportunity. But the end result is that we are on track to create a multi-billion-rand ‘battery graveyard’ of electronic waste simply because fly-by-night drop-shippers refused to invest in local repairability.”
While the South African Battery Manufacturers Association (SABMA) plays a big role in coordinating the safety, quality, and localisation standards in the energy storage sector, it was only established in October 2025 – too late to pre-empt this battery graveyard. SABMA is a vocal advocate of growth in the domestic manufacturing sector and its standing as a global energy storage leader.
However, it is not all doom and gloom. The industry needs to work harder to educate end users and installers about the critical importance of local engineering expertise and geographic reach of support teams. Businesses, installers, and procurement managers need to look beyond the initial price and evaluate true total cost of ownership.
Building real energy independence requires investing in local expertise. There are solid battery businesses operating in this country that have the pedigree and track record to prove it. The longest-serving battery businesses in the country have already gone through their first warranty cycles. These are businesses that have invested in robust local infrastructure and engineering support.
Support Local
“Building real independence from the grid, and the peace of mind that comes with that, requires prioritising systems that are assembled locally and backed by qualified and accessible engineering teams on the ground in South Africa. Businesses and installers should seek out suppliers that stock accessible spare parts and then support this with a service footprint that spans all nine provinces. The last thing a remote business needs to hear when they call in a fault is that an engineer might be able to fly out from China in a month. Business continuity depends on local support,” Dickerson concludes.
