Elon Musk’s Tesla Powerwall kit will cost R225k in South Africa

Earlier this year, South African-born Tesla CEO Elon Musk announced plans to create and distribute home power reservoirs that could keep the lights on beyond the dark grip of load shedding. Of course, he didn’t use the latter term, but the Powerwall is essentially a load shedding-affected country’s holy grail.

And said holy grail won’t come cheap in South Africa.

A renewable energy company Dako Power will be importing these glorified UPS units to the country, and will sell each for a cool R225 000. Installation is another R15 000. MyBroadband has also noted that the price is pegged to the US Dollar, so if the Rand does weaken any further, chances are the price will change as well.

Read more: Is Elon Musk’s Tesla Energy just what Africa’s energy grid needs?

To be fair, you get quite a bit of equipment for the price of a new Volkswagen Polo.

The 7kWh Powerwall is included, as well as backup inverter and a batch of solar panels which Dako claims “provides enough power to run most energy efficient appliances of a standard house (lights, TV, DStv, fridge, computer, microwave, etc.).”

What’s interesting it Dako’s approach. Although the Powerwall is designed to take advantage of America’s low power rates at night, charging the batteries when the rate is cheapest, Dako wants to use solar panels to charge the Powerwall, which makes sense in a country that’s starved of electricity at practically all times of day.

The company is taking orders for the Powerwall kit for Johannesburg and Cape Town-based residents and will begin shipping the units February 2016.