The Basics

So if you've got no clue about these sort of things, but just want some power during load shedding, here are your options.

There are two numbers to look out for: Capacity in Watt hours, and Power in Watts or Volt Amps (VA).

Power capacity, or storage, is measured in watt-hours (Wh). A really cheapo UPS will hold about 100Wh, A lightbulb might draw 25W, so 100Wh divided by 25W gives 4h of power.

There is also an upper limit to how much maximum power the UPS can deliver at once. This will be a figure in Watts or Volt Amps. A small fridge, TV and a few lights would add up to about 500W.

Pap and Gravy: Hundreds of rands
These sort of UPS units will power a computer for about between 10 minutes and an hour, and cost about R500 up to R2000 or so.

Big downside: These units are designed for emergency backup so they usually beep annoyingly when the power is out. So you'll need to do a bit of surgery to disable the buzzer.

A super cheapo UPS will hold about 50Wh of usable charge, and be able to deliver up to 500W at once. This means you can draw 25W (or one energy-saving lightbulb's worth) over a two hour load shedding period.

These units usually have 'kettle' (IEC60320) type connectors so you'll need to get adapters for your plugs.

Remember that the batteries in low-end UPSes don't last long if it gets used a lot. You can expect it to give out in a year or two.

Streetwise Two: Thousands of rands

Some enterprising souls on gumtree are selling small inverter kits with a medium sized battery and inverter.
You can expect to pay upwards of about R5000 to R10000 for this sort of thing.

A 1000W inverter with a 500Wh of usable power in the battery would be able to power your TV and decoder (250W) for two hours.

They usually come with a plug socket so you can run an extension lead to your TV or fridge etc.

Col-o-nel burger: Tens of thousands
Here's where you start wiring the inverter into the house's electricity distribution board. The system automatically kicks in when the power fails so you don't need to mess around with extension leads etc.

My system here cost about R25000, and can supply 4000w and has 2000Wh of usable storage, so I can run the TV, fridge, computer, lights etc for 2 hours.

Big solar setup

Fully loaded box meal: Hundreds of thousands
We're out of DIY territory now, but this sort of thing would make Eskom irrelevant (if you have a few spare kidneys to sell.)