Geysers in our homes contribute about 8% to the carbon footprint.
But more electricity consumers are turning to cleaner energy such as PV and wind technologies. This is despite upfront costs of about R20 – 25 K for residential customers.
Installation of PV plus a battery, costs around R100K.
Dr Sean Moolman, Co-founder and COO of PowerOptimal, says there is another way residential areas can benefit from the technology. “Because we can measure how much electricity is used, for hot water especially. Our vision considers hot water as a service, we will install everything for free, and then sell green electricity for half the price of your current bill. Then affordability is not a question.”
The odds are stacked up against residential solar PV installations, especially with the latest development, where Eskom has applied to NERSA to increase the tariff by more than R600, a month for solar PV installations.
If approved by NERSA, the tariff will amount to about R900 for being connected to the grid only.
Speaking at the African Smart Cities Summit, held as part of the Big 5 Construct Southern Africa, organized by dmg events, Dr Moolman made a case in favour of solar PV.
He said firstly, the price of water and electricity, has increased 6 fold more than inflation over the last 28 years. Salaries and wages have not kept up.
He said secondly, last year, South Africa imported over 5 Gigawatts (GW) of solar PV in 1 year. About 600 MW of this amount was used in residential areas while 5GW was for commercial use.
Moolman said the 5GW, has had a huge impact, with Eskom benefitting directly from the use of solar PV. There’s now extra capacity during the day, allowing the power utility to pump water up the hill, for the evening.
Moolman said 2007 was the year of the highest electricity consumption but has been decreasing ever since then.
The economy has grown a bit since then, by about, 22% from 2007 and 2023.
“Our grid electricity consumption has decreased, a lot of this is coming from solar PV installations.”
Benefits of solar PV versus fossil fuels
Moolman said there is a difference between old fossil fuels energy generation and solar PV generation.
“With fossil fuels, you have to continue burning something, nuclear needs a continuous stocking with uranium, both have a commodity that needs to be bought from an open market.
The downside of commodities is their exponential increase in price over 100 years.
Solar PV is a technology and not a commodity, it benefits from solar technology improvements.
This is why there is a dramatic decrease in the price of solar PV.
“Nuclear for example, has about 10 years of construction, with the Independent Power Producers in SA, it takes between 2-3 years Procurement process, cost-over runs with coal fired stations” explained Moolman.
The cheapest solar world record in Portugal, was in 2020, when the price of a unit was at USD13 per Megawatt hour, an equivalent of 25 cents per MW in SA Rands and cents versus the current R3 we are currently paying.
In 2021, it went down to USD 10, in Saudi Arabia.
Downside of PV technology
Downstream implications of battery storage on the environment in the next 20 years or so, must still be determined and recycling solutions implemented.
Raw materials used to manufacture this technology, must also be discussed extensively.
Graph:Dr Sean Moolman presented
Picture: dmg events