Unlocking The Potential Of Solar Energy

With solar energy becoming increasingly affordable and reliable, more and more farmers are using it to reduce their electricity costs and dependence on Eskom power. Claude Peters of RenEnergy spoke to Glenneis Kriel about this trend.

- Glenneis Kriel

Historically, South Africa was considered one of the countries with the cheapest electricity, but prices increased by more than 177% between 2010 and 2020. The escalation has resulted in a profit squeeze for most businesses, with power cuts and intermittent supplies adding to this financial burden.

RenEnergy, a UK-based supplier of solar power solutions, expanded into South Africa in 2012.

“Britain experienced a massive solar power boom around 2010, thanks to heavy subsidies,” explains Claude Peters, managing director of RenEnergy Africa. “But interest in South Africa, in spite of its solar energy potential being among the best in the world, only really took off four years ago, due to the technology becoming cheaper and more competitive in comparison with Eskom prices, and load shedding making supply unreliable.”

The business environment was also unfriendly towards alternative energy, with legislation and finance being the biggest restrictions previously.

“Eskom simply wasn’t geared and had to reverse-engineer to accommodate systems that were connected to the grid, whereas traditional banking institutions weren’t positioned to comfortably finance these types of assets.”

The situation has now improved dramatically, with new rules introduced in October 2020 that allow municipalities to generate or source their own electricity. Eskom also accepted that it needed to allow private generators to export excess energy onto Eskom’s network to assist with supply constraints.

On the financing side, many banks now consider renewable energy as value addition and employ specialised bankers to accommodate businesses and homeowners who want to make the switch, says Peters.