Electricity Alert: Generating your own elecricity

Options for generating your own electricity include:

Photovoltaic (PV) systems
Wind turbines
Micro hydro systems
Biomass and biogas engines
Diesel or bio-diesel generators.

A normal middle class South African household consumes between 20 kWh and 30 kWh a day.

Residential solar power rooftop installations are sky rocketing internationally, but South Africa is still behind the curve due to a lack of innovative financing. Apart from extending a home loan or taking a personal loan, South Africans have limited financing options available at the moment. No figures are available for how many home solar systems exist in South Africa, but the CSIR estimates that the country’s total peak capacity is only about 10 MW. This is opposed to the estimate of 1 GW installed in the UK’s residential homes. <ore than 125 000 homes in the UK installed solar photovoltaic systems on their roofs last year, driven in part by the country’s feed-in tariff. Earlier this year, research body the CSIR calculated in a report that residential-sized photovoltaic systems were already a cost-competitive alternative to other new-build options, even with finance fees included. The cost of rooftop solar power – including financing at an interest rate of 9% – came in at 81 cents per kilowatt-hour. Power from Medupi and Kusile, which are still under construction, will be sold at 80 cents per kWh, but Eskom’s pricing is also likely to become more expensive. In Bangladesh, the government is installing more than 80 000 solar home systems every month with the help of a World Bank loan. In India, the government is considering a tax incentive to encourage households to purchase rooftop solar panels. The Indian government is in discussions with banks to provide easy loans for renewable energy schemes, such as rooftop solar installations. In the US, 66 440 new solar systems were installed in the first three months of 2015. That brings the total number of American households with solar to about 700 000. But about two-thirds of Americans don’t actually buy their solar systems but opt for solar leases or power-purchase agreements. Such schemes are also popular in the UK.

Parkhurst's off-grid power plan

The process started initially by investigating solutions that would be optimal for the neighbourhood, followed by consultations with international experts and consulting engineers. They initially explored the idea of a big scale solar farm opposite Pirates Rugby Club, and even hydrogen solutions per block as part of their investigations. It was decided, that the optimal solution due to time constraints imposed by recent load shedding, is a modular solar solutions per household. A solar farm project would have taken up to two years with environmental impact studies, design and construction.

Residents are encouraged to do the following:

Change all light bulbs to LED lighting,
Insulate roof with Think Pink,
Insulate existing windows with glazing,
Use natural gas for cooking,
Backup water heating for solar heating systems. (It is currently possible at this junction to use a hybrid solar and gas geyser combination.)
And for space heating, either a gas system or a wood pellet fireplace. (Using gas will significantly reduce the size of the solar system that you may require. They are also in talks with Egoli to pipe gas to every household in Parkhurst.)