Quote Originally Posted by Blurock View Post
The reason one would switch to solar lights is the ever increasing cost and unreliability of Escom power. I am not looking for an industrial light, but a basic solar light that can be mounted on a wall or gutter. More than one light can be mounted to light up around the house.
I would say a price of between R400 - R600 would make it viable for the consumer. Obviously the manufacturer would want to recover R&D and have a markup, but that is a longer term process and amortisation should extend over a couple of years at least. Effective marketing should generate the numbers to make it possible.
Low cost LED lighting is already available from most suppliers, within the price range you are prepared to pay. 10W LED lighting for around R130, however only at around 80 Lumens of light. Running off mains, this is not a real issue, simply add more lights to increase brightness or the amount of light required.

The challenge however is running these lights with inverters. In some cases flickering is going to occur, and in other cases, the efficiencies of the lights are poor, reducing battery lifespan. Running these lights on a few occasions on batteries when there is a power failure, maybe something one can live with.
The one issue of course is that all this lighting is manufactured and imported from China. At some stage there will be a deficit in the finances. We can not pay local labour the kind of prices that are paid in China. This off course raises a whole new issue, which is beyond the scope of our discussion here.