Barry Streek
A Gauteng informal settlement is to be the site of a R5,6-million study on whether solar water heating of South African homes can be viable in low-income areas.
Between 200 and 500 homes in Ivory Park in the Midrand area will be used in the two-and-a-half year project conducted by the Department of Mineral and Energy Affairs.
Financed as a United Nations Development Programme Finesse project, it will start in the last quarter of this year and its aim is to explore and overcome the barriers to solar water heating present in low- and middle-income homes.
“South Africa has failed to exploit sun energy in an effective way,” Andre Otto, the department’s principal energy officer in its renewable energy division, told Midrand’s Eco-City newsletter.
“When contrasted with other countries, which have less sunlight hours than we do, it is clear that an intervention to identify and overcome the retarding barriers to us using solar energy is necessary.
“This project provides us with a window of opportunity to address all the problems,” says Otto.
“At the end of the project, it is vital that we find a sustainable way, in cooperation with financial institutions, to make solar water heating available to communities.”
Otto said the importance of the study for the whole of South Africa should not be underestimated: “A breakthrough in Ivory Park will have significant implications for the rest of the country and could point the way to popularising solar water heating.”
It has been established that hot water geysers in a home are the most costly electrical device to run, making up to 40% of electricity bills, and that homes fitted with solar water heaters will have much reduced energy bills.
South Africa receives an average of between 4,5kWh and 6kWh a square metre a day from the sun.
It has also been estimated that if the 9?000 Ivory Park homes were equipped with solar water heaters over the next 20 years about one million tons of carbon, the primary source of greenhouse gasses and global warming, would be kept from release into the atmosphere.
An International Institute for Energy Conservation survey of 30 Ivory Park homes showed that many residents are tired of the high cost of energy and would welcome solar water heating.
It established that the average family spends R170 a month for energy and fuels, representing between 14% and 25% of income.