South Africa has some of the best solar resources in the world and is making great strides in expanding the use of solar energy.
The government is taking steps to promote the use of solar energy through initiatives such as the Renewable Energy Independent Power Producer Procurement Program (REIPPPP), aiming to attract private sector investments in solar projects.
The demand for clean energy is rising & the cost of solar technology is shrinking All of this is contributing to recent increase in the South African solar panels market.
So, what are South Africans thinking of doing with all that solar energy?
How Google Search is Revealing South African Solar Trends
We analyzed 5000+ queries made on Google by South Africans, with 4 years of historical data – to reveal what’s trending in each province. Inverters, systems, and installation queries are really popular across Google.
Hybrid panel searches have soared over 140% over the last year. Even submersible, the lowest category increase, still rose by 20%. With the increasing cost-competitiveness of solar compared to other traditional sources of energy, it’s no surprise that people are looking for ways to purchase & optimize their solar systems.
The most popular types of searches were for inverters, parcels, batteries, generators, and tiles. All of these had a volume of 10k searches with most demand having risen by at least 60%.
How do you collect search query data to analyze solar panel and inverter trends?
The Trajaan platform allows you to do market research by collecting hundreds of consumer queries, processing data from Amazon, Google, and your search bar.
Here you can see the percent change from 2022 and 2021 of solar inverters all having soared over 3x in search volume, with some queries having traffic multiplied by 20x
All of these are on a continuous trending increase & have suitable targets for solar devices.
What about brand-specific searches related to solar panels?
We can see a massive growth trend that has been steadily increasing since the summer of 2021. The biggest brands expanding have been Sunsynk, Mecer, Deye, and Canadian Solar.
With over 120k monthly searches compared to the baseline of 30k over the last 3 years.
What South African Provinces Have The Biggest Demand?
The largest search markets were in the Western Cape and Gauteng provinces. Other provinces in the country still had an increase in searches, but not to the extent of these main two.
All provinces had a massive increase in systems and inverter searches over the last year. In Gauteng, there was a unique increase in battery searches, and inverters in the Western Cape and Gauteng. The Northern Cape had less searches for Kits than other regions.
Most Popular Websites Attracting Solar Searches
Sustainible.co.za gets the largest proportion of panel traffic compared to other South African websites. They seem to be leading the most categories like panels, inverters, systems, and battery searches.
They receive an estimated 20% of all solar traffic in South Africa. Trajaan lets you view these insights across the entire sector.
What’s Next In South Africa?
Over the next few months, we’re expecting to see a continuous and steady rise of panel searches across South Africa
The trends and popularity across brands like Canadian Solar, Deye, Mercer, and Sunsynk will most likely continue to dominate the solar sector across the country. Inverters have risen in popularity and don’t seem to be showing signs of slowing anytime soon.
If you’re looking for insights on consumer trends across the South African solar industry, book a demo to get access to the data platform Trajaan.
