July 30, 2025

Family in garden with battewry
Energy

Battery Buyer’s Guide — Prices Have Collapsed

There’s a quiet revolution rumbling beneath the surface of the global energy market — and no, it’s not just the hum of your neighbour’s Tesla Powerwall on a sunny day. It’s the plummeting price of off-grid batteries, triggered not by some technological breakthrough or eco-angelic alignment of incentives, but by a good old-fashioned geopolitical pile-up: China’s battery dumping spree.

Yes, in a move that would make a Bond villain blush, Chinese battery manufacturers — faced with tariffs and trade walls from the US and EU — are offloading lithium-iron phosphate (LFP) batteries onto the global market. The result? Off-grid battery prices are falling faster than a politician’s promises after election day.

And for off-gridders, back garden solar tinkerers, rural dwellers, vanlifers, homesteaders, and the “grid-curious,” this is an unexpectedly golden hour.

A Power Glut

To understand what’s happening,  peek behind the geopolitical curtain. As the US and EU slap tariffs on Chinese EVs and battery exports in an effort to protect domestic industry (or, more cynically, delay the inevitable), Chinese manufacturers — now sitting on millions of surplus battery cells — have turned their gaze to less regulated, less protected markets.

In practical terms, this means you can now buy a high-quality, long-lifespan, 48V 100Ah LFP battery — the kind that used to set you back over $1,000 — for closer to $300–$400. That’s not a typo. That’s a seismic shift.

These aren’t shady knock-offs either. Many come from the same production lines supplying major electric vehicle makers. We’re talking about B-grade cells with A+ performance, packed into rack-mountable boxes with Bluetooth, smart BMS, and the smug satisfaction of sticking it to Big Utility. You can use the batteries to time-shift your electricity consumption, butyng at night when prices are cheap and using the energy during the day.  Plus you have the satisfaction of being prepared for the (almost inevitable) power cut.

The Grid Is Nervous — And It Should Be

This price collapse is a backhanded gift for those of us dreaming of energy independence. Suddenly, a reliable home battery bank — once the domain of the well-heeled prepper or early-adopting tech bro — is within reach of the average household. And that, frankly, scares the grid.

Why? Because batteries are the final piece of the puzzle. Solar without storage is like a kettle without a thermos: brilliant at 1pm, useless at 1am. But cheap, modular, durable storage? That’s a paradigm shift. That’s people keeping their own power, controlling their own time of use, not calling the utility company during a blackout –  because they didn’t notice.

Now, before you hop online and fill your shed with lithium bricks like you’re building the world’s first electric castle, remember: cheap doesn’t mean perfect. Safety standards, warranty support, and shipping risks still apply. Some sellers are brilliant; others sell you a battery and disappear like a blockchain startup.

But the …

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Community|Energy

Sun King’s Crown: 156m Reasons Off-Grid Solar Has Finally Grown Up

Kenyan company Sun King calls itself “the world’s largest off-grid solar energy company.” That’s not just marketing hyperbole—and it’s a statement that reveals how the energy landscape has shifted beneath our feet. The company’s recent $156 million securitisation (meaning sale of their existing revenue streams), the largest of its kind in Africa, isn’t just another funding round. It’s a watershed moment that signals the off-grid solar industry has finally matured from a niche development sector into a legitimate financial asset class that commercial banks are willing to bet serious money on.

But here’s what makes this story truly compelling: Sun King’s claim to being the world’s largest isn’t based on the usual Silicon Valley metrics of valuation or venture capital raised. Instead, it’s built on something more meaningful—actual impact at scale. With over 27 million solar products sold, 23 million homes powered, and $1.3 billion in solar loans extended to nearly 10 million customers across 46 countries, Sun King has quietly assembled the largest customer base in the off-grid energy sector while most of us were still debating whether distributed solar could ever be commercially viable.

 For the first time, commercial banks are treating off-grid solar as a mainstream financial asset rather than a development experiment. This legitimisation opens doors to capital pools that dwarf traditional development finance, creating the potential for unprecedented scale in clean energy deployment.

The timing of this funding is significant. As the world grapples with energy security, climate change, and the persistent challenge of providing electricity to 1.8 billion people who still lack reliable access, Sun King’s securitisation proves that market-based solutions can scale to meet these challenges—if we’re willing to think differently about how energy systems work.

Off-grid solar companies lacks the standardised metrics that financial analysts need to define leadership in traditional energy markets. Unlike utility-scale solar where gigawatts of installed capacity provide clear rankings, or residential solar where revenue figures tell the story, off-grid solar operates in a more complex ecosystem where success must be measured across multiple dimensions.

Sun King’s claim to the crown rests on several metrics. First, customer reach: with nearly 10 million individual customers served, Sun King has built a customer base that dwarfs its closest competitors [1]. For context, d.light, another major player founded the same year as Sun King’s predecessor Greenlight Planet, reports revenue of approximately $217-309 million annually but serves significantly fewer customers [2]. M-KOPA, the Kenyan fintech-solar hybrid, boasts higher reported revenue at $618.8 million but operates primarily in East Africa with a more limited geographic footprint [3].

What’s particularly striking is Sun King’s product volume: over 27 million solar products sold represents a scale of manufacturing and distribution that few companies in any sector achieve, let alone in the challenging off-grid markets of Africa and Asia. This isn’t just about bragging rights—it demonstrates something crucial about the company’s operational capabilities and market penetration

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