Poor appetite for alternative

SLOWER ORDER PROGRESSION: HALT IN LOAD SHEDDING DIMS LIGHT FOR SOLAR INDUSTRY

- Antoinette Slabbert

Rising tariffs drive the business case for solar, but power cut reprieve hurts sales.

The good news that load shedding has now stayed away for more than three months is bad news for the solar industry. Although households and businesses still have the appetite to free themselves from Eskom, the urgency is gone, and this could impact thousands of solar installers nationwide whose cash flow depends on the onetime payments when they do an installation.

Jonty Sacks, partner at Jaltech, which has installed solar panels on the rooftops of 160 retailers and factories over the past year and sells the power to the businesses on the premises, said the company that entered the market about a year ago.

It raised about R750 million from retail investors to finance solar power installations. For example, it would enter into an agreement with a supermarket to use its roof space to generate solar power, which the supermarket would then buy from it at a fraction of the Eskom price.

Independent installers install the solar panel system.

Jaltech owns the installation, and the retailer does not have to worry about the technical aspects and maintenance.