Escape from Eskom grid ‘is a no brainer’
‘WE HAVE THIS WONDERFUL RESOURCE, BUT SOMETHING IS GETTING IN THE WAY OF USING IT’
THE STARK REALITY OF THE GLOBAL CLIMATE CRISIS AS WELL AS THE POWER SITUATION IN SA HAS NOT YET SUNK IN
• The global climate crisis should be enough to drive any eco-conscious citizen off the power grid. And now, a house in the Johannesburg suburb of Melville might well turn out to be a model for how to achieve that, Lisa Steyn reports in the second of a three-part series
Self-confessed eco-nut Paul Chinn thought Melville, in Johannesburg, would be fertile ground for his ideas on going off the grid.
“If through a little persuasion I can get any one house to switch from Eskom to solar that’s worth five to 10 tonnes of carbon dioxide [emissions] a year,” he says.
That’s four times more carbon dioxide than an acre of new forest can absorb in a year.
“If I could get half of Melville to do that, it would be 5,000 tonnes a year. And, if Melville were to become a little model for other communities, maybe some of the strange policies of government might face a little challenge,” says Chinn.
He and his wife, both British nationals, only recently settled in SA. When they bought their Melville home last July, the first thing they did was install a R180,000 system that allows them to be almost entirely off grid.
With 10 panels on the roof, a large lithium-ion battery and an inverter, the Chinn household can supply all of its power needs from sun energy most of the time. Despite the house being sub-optimally positioned to take advantage of the light, the batteries are usually filled by lunch time, and any extra energy generated before sundown is surplus.
Through an app on his phone, Chinn can remotely monitor how much the system is pulling at any one time and make adjustments if required.
On the rare times of having no sun for days at a time, he taps into his Eskom connection. Having put R500 on his prepaid meter he does not anticipate topping it up for many months to come.
The battery is the highest risk and cost part of the system, but with a guarantee for about 7,000 discharges, Chinn does not expect he will have to replace it within his lifetime.
The system is also fairly maintenance-free, apart from washing down the panels from time to time if the rain does not do it first.
For Chinn, a retired mathematician who built computer systems for an oil company, it’s a no-brainer — the climate crisis should drive any eco-conscious world citizen to go green.
In SA there is the added incentive of rapidly growing electricity prices as utility Eskom is simply unable to meet power demand.
The economics all add up, he says. When arriving in SA, he was staggered to see the lack of renewables in the economy. In contrast, he has observed solar installations on every second house in a modest district in the UK where his daughter lives.
“In the UK, there is about 1,500 hours of sunlight a year, in Johannesburg it is 3,200 hours,” he says. “We have this wonderful resource, but something is getting in the way of using it.”
According to the SA Photovoltaic Industry Association (Sapvia), the residential market for solar power is growing and an estimated 100,000 systems have been installed in SA homes in the past two years.
While Chinn thinks the government could do more to encourage the uptake of renewables among SA households, he suspects there is reluctance from householders to get off the grid.
It could be that the government is not incentivising them to reduce their reliance on the grid. Something simple such as reducing VAT on solar installations for home could help a great deal.
The government could also make it easier to feed power back into the grid, or even make it profitable, as has been the case in many European countries.
According to Sapvia COO Niveshen Govender, many municipalities — including the City of Johannesburg — allow homeowners and businesses to feed power back into the grid, and feed-in tariffs are used to calculate the amount which is then offset against their power bill. In terms of regulation however, the utility is not allowed to pay more for your power than you pay for what you consume.
Even without incentives, the numbers do work.
By Chinn’s calculations — which make certain assumptions about electricity price increases and cost of the money — he sees a 10-year return on investment in an offgrid system such as his.
Sapvia estimates solargenerated power can reduce a household’s electricity costs by as much as 22%, depending on the installation.
Though neighbours have shown a great deal of interest, “when it gets down to doing it, it doesn’t quite happen”, says Chinn.
He thinks people are probably put off by the capital cost. While a number of operators are prepared to establish commercial solar systems for businesses (as long as a power purchase agreement is in place), in the residential market, where funding arrangements are not readily or cheaply available, options are limited.
Typically, however, most homeowners are opting to finance solar installations through their bond.
For those who have capital, many are part of what Chinn describes as a traffic jam of South Africans heading to Europe.
“There seems to be a kind of unease about the long term among people who have the capital resources to do this kind of thing.
“Maybe if the payback period starts to reduce that would make a difference, maybe more stability in government and more confidence.”
As Chinn continues his crusade to get Melville off the grid, he has come to think that the stark reality of the global climate crisis as well as the power situation in SA has not yet sunk in.
“People need to adjust rather than just wish that things were different,” he says.