Technologies that use renewable sources of energy have been struggling to elbow their way into the mainstream, but there are signs that South African households are embracing solar energy to meet their hot-water requirements.
Although most green technologies require a subsidy to compete with coal-fired power, solar water heating is now emerging as a solution that can stand on its own.
One indication of solar’s financial sustainability is the move by Teljoy, best known for financing the mass adoption of television sets in the 1970s, to offer financial packages to help households meet upfront costs.
Teljoy will come to your house and install a solar geyser. You pay R388 a month for 48 months, plus a R2 500 down payment.
The idea is that the solar unit is in part financed by the savings you make on your monthly electricity bill. At the end of the payment period you will own a 150-litre solar heater.
Teljoy’s Theo Rutstein says that since the publication of Eskom’s proposed tariff increases his company has been receiving more than 300 inquiries a day.
‘Initially people thought it was a good idea to go solar, but few people were prepared to dig into their pockets to pay for it,” he said.
‘It is generally recognised that heating water accounts for between 30% and 50% of an average household’s electricity consumption so the installation of a solar water geyser will effectively offset the proposed Eskom hike,” says Rutstein.
Some municipal authorities are also rolling out solar programmes in conjunction with the stateowned Central Energy Fund (CEF).
The programme, known as Switch, proposes to soften the blow of the capital investment needed by households by allowing a longer period to pay off the geyser.
CEF wants to install 400 000 solar water heaters in Port Elizabeth and Ekurhuleni in the next few years. Households that sign up will pay them off over eight to 10 years at a rate more or less the same as that consumed by their electrical geysers.
They will be billed through their monthly utilities bill. ‘We are very excited about this project and believe that it will make a huge difference,” CEF chief executive Manny Singh told the Mail & Guardian.
He hopes the project will be up and running by the beginning of next year. A dedicated call centre will be available to those who sign up for the programme.
The CEF has already signed up the initial 250 households in each municipality to test the programme.
Ekurhuleni still has a few tests slots, but Port Elizabeth is full. Households can still get the Eskom subsidies and the CEF will facilitate payment to the consumer of the Eskom rebate. Other municipalities want to follow suit.
Johannesburg is investigating a programme similar to the CEF’s Switch. But so far Eskom’s rebate programme has not been the success government had hoped it would be, with many consumers frustrated at having to deal with the parastatal.
The Eskom project has become infamous for the bottlenecks interested people have to deal with.
Eskom’s programme has delivered only 1 430 subsidies so far and numerous headaches are
associated with the scheme.
Solar water heaters do not come cheap at between R15 000 and R30 000 a pop as opposed to the conventional R3 000.
And then there is the skills shortage — plumbers that actually know how to install the geysers are in short supply and the backup service is also a problem.
But more schemes are beginning that promise backup service and able plumbers to assist with the solar geyser roll-out. And these options do not require dealing with Eskom.
The government’s long-term mitigation strategy to cut carbon emissions and fight climate change needs a huge switch to solar geysers if the necessary cuts are to be achieved.
Alf Wills, South Africa’s lead climate change negotiator, has emphasised the critical role solar geysers will play in cutting South Africa’s carbon emissions.