South Africa

The Star Interbuild Africa will take place from 15 to 18 August 2012 in Johannesburg. The International Building and Construction Exhibition focuses on the latest developments in the extensive building services and construction arena. From affordable housing products to civil engineering equipment, plant hire and equipment, scaffolding and structural products including bricks, tiles, cement, flooring and windows, doors, roofing and cladding, lighting and paints.

In early August, South Africa's national utility, Eskom, convened a workshop for solar water heating manufacturers, suppliers and installers. The primary objective of the workshop was to advise the industry on what to do about the remaining budget for the solar water heating rebate scheme, as well as which immediate steps to take until the end of the 2011-2012 financial year. Quality issues of currently installed systems were also discussed (see the attached presentation). The chart shows the strong increase in the number of applications for non-pressurised (NP) solar water heaters.
Source: Eskom

There has been no decision yet regarding the future of the national residential incentive programme by South African utility Eskom: As of 12 July 2011, the utility counted a backlog of all in all 53,208 applications. This is more than half of the number of all applications approved since the beginning of the programme in 2007 (84,214 application). 76 % of the applications that are still pending approval deal with open loop systems. Closed loop systems make up the smaller proportion, with 12,644 still pending applications.

South African company Ikhwezi Solar (Pty) Ltd announced in mid-July that its new solar thermal flat plate manufacturing plant has become fully operational. The factory's annual production capacity is 22,000 collectors, which are manufactured on a single shift basis. Before starting its own collector production, the company based in East London, at the southeast coast of South Africa, had specialised in supplying and installing solar thermal collectors for both South Africa's commercial and domestic market. “We decided to capitalise on the momentum created in South Africa, with the focus having moved much to renewable energy,” Executive Director of Ikhwezi Solar, Pieter Bosch, explains.
Photo: Ikhwezi Solar

According to Dr Uli Jakob, Vice President of the “Green Chiller - Association for Sorption Cooling”, the solar cooling sector may soon experience a shift from small series production of a niche market to considerable manufacturing quantities. Jakob points out two signs supporting such a development: First, the approval of the IEA-SHC task 48, “Quality Assurance and Support Measures for Solar Cooling“; second, the recent market entry of big players, such as Stiebel Eltron (Germany) and Hitachi (Japan).
Photo: Bärbel Epp

This is an overview presented by the Southern Africa Solar Thermal and Electricity Association (SASTELA) concerning the potential, developments and future perspectives for both solar thermal and PV energy in Africa, especially in South Africa. The main objective is to develop and interconnect the African nascent grid to the EU electrical grid by 2050.

Following a brief presentation of SASTELA’s 10 objectives, the document provides some context information linked to the CSP (concentrating solar power) potential of Africa and the main activities under development.

The Energex Africa 2011 will take place at the Gallagher Convention Center in Johannesburg from 7 to 9 June. The trade fair will present the achievements and novelties in the field of solar thermal, PV, biomass, wind power, hydro power, and energy efficiency.

Thirty seven solar water heating industry leaders and academics have just attended the third SOLTRAIN (Southern African Solar Thermal Training and Demonstration Initiative) solar thermal technical training course in Pretoria, South Africa. The training was formally opened by the regional coordinator of the programme, Professor Dieter Holm. In opening, Holm emphasized the value of the hands-on approach to the course under the guidance of a number of eminent experts in the field. The delegates represented a balanced mix from industry and academia.
Photo: Omnibus Engineering

The number of monthly installed and subsidised solar thermal installations in South African households increased significantly towards the end of 2010. According to Eskom, energy utility and administrator of the national residential subsidy programme, 4,914 claims were paid in December. This compares favourably to the approximate 250 systems that were installed in the same period in 2009, and represents a significant increase as can be seen from the graph. Eskom is not updating the above chart anymore with monthly figures.
Source: Eskom/SESSA

This action sheet was published by the Pace Project (Pan African Conservation Education Project), funded by the Vodafone Foundation and ran in partnership by Tusk Trust and Siren Conservation Education. The goal is to help spreading simple solutions to environmental problems between communities in Africa.