THE energy room of the future is a cool, silent space in an outbuilding of a Gonubie suburban home where a row of four little blue machines intelligently control the flow of pure, free energy created from sunlight harvested off the nearby garage roof.
Across the city in Duncan Village, entrepreneur Nosipo Nxikwe, 48, also taps into a sun-powered future with a smaller energy plant which she had installed in September after months of frustrating blackouts caused by the multiple illegal connections in the neighbourhood.
Nxikwe chortled as she told the Saturday Dispatch how her outlay in September of R38000 for a locally-designed system, delivered enough power to run a six-roomed, self-built home, with lights, a fridge, plasma TV, an iron, and other appliances, while the neighbourhood was often without power.
“When the neighbours walk by and wonder why I have electricity and they don’t, I just keep quiet,” she said.
Nxikwe is in her second-year at Unisa reading for a social work degree, while heading a household of five women relatives who all enjoy their new energy system.
Although she does not have a geyser, she plugs an immersion element into the system, heats up a 25-litre bucket of water and fills her bath.
Instead of a dedicated energy room, she only has a “white box with a black knob on it, and a meter which we read all the time”.
She has to turn off her TV and fridge when she irons. But the joy of being free from bureaucracy and expensive electricity bills is worth it.
“It is marvellous!” she said.
This week, independent electrical engineer and Eskom energy specialist for 20 years, Bertie le Roux showed the Dispatch one of the city’s first suburban solar plant systems which converts sunlight with enough power for at least eight domestic machines and an LED lighting system.
The Seaspray townhouse was used as a holiday home by a family of four for two weeks during the festive season and, although the system can be switched over to BCM power should demand outstrip supply, Le Roux says this was not necessary.
The former Cambridge High pupil says a number of East Londoners and others from surrounding towns have rigged their homes with new green technology in a bid to take them off the state-owned grid. Le Roux says he is in favour of solar power, but accepts a smart energy mix would include gas for heating.
But Le Roux admits some products , especially those aimed at rural areas, are not up to scratch.
Cost remains an inhibiting factor, but he says solid systems are available for between R30000 and R160000, which was the price for rigging the Gonubie townhouse with 16m² of photo-voltaic panels, a flat-plate solar collector panel and a heat pump for the geyser. Light energy is stored in 24 two-volt cell batteries in the control room, which supplies the house with 36 kilowatt hours (kWh) of household electricity.
When the house is in full holiday swing, with all appliances being used, he said usage never once dipped to the point where the intelligent controls would have automatically tripped the system over to BCM supply. — mikel@dispatch.co.za
Turning from Eskom to solar power
Across the city in Duncan Village, entrepreneur Nosipo Nxikwe, 48, also taps into a sun-powered future with a smaller energy plant which she had installed in September after months of frustrating blackouts caused by the multiple illegal connections in the neighbourhood.
Nxikwe chortled as she told the Saturday Dispatch how her outlay in September of R38000 for a locally-designed system, delivered enough power to run a six-roomed, self-built home, with lights, a fridge, plasma TV, an iron, and other appliances, while the neighbourhood was often without power.
“When the neighbours walk by and wonder why I have electricity and they don’t, I just keep quiet,” she said.
Nxikwe is in her second-year at Unisa reading for a social work degree, while heading a household of five women relatives who all enjoy their new energy system.
Although she does not have a geyser, she plugs an immersion element into the system, heats up a 25-litre bucket of water and fills her bath.
Instead of a dedicated energy room, she only has a “white box with a black knob on it, and a meter which we read all the time”.
She has to turn off her TV and fridge when she irons. But the joy of being free from bureaucracy and expensive electricity bills is worth it.
“It is marvellous!” she said.
This week, independent electrical engineer and Eskom energy specialist for 20 years, Bertie le Roux showed the Dispatch one of the city’s first suburban solar plant systems which converts sunlight with enough power for at least eight domestic machines and an LED lighting system.
The Seaspray townhouse was used as a holiday home by a family of four for two weeks during the festive season and, although the system can be switched over to BCM power should demand outstrip supply, Le Roux says this was not necessary.
The former Cambridge High pupil says a number of East Londoners and others from surrounding towns have rigged their homes with new green technology in a bid to take them off the state-owned grid. Le Roux says he is in favour of solar power, but accepts a smart energy mix would include gas for heating.
But Le Roux admits some products , especially those aimed at rural areas, are not up to scratch.
Cost remains an inhibiting factor, but he says solid systems are available for between R30000 and R160000, which was the price for rigging the Gonubie townhouse with 16m² of photo-voltaic panels, a flat-plate solar collector panel and a heat pump for the geyser. Light energy is stored in 24 two-volt cell batteries in the control room, which supplies the house with 36 kilowatt hours (kWh) of household electricity.
When the house is in full holiday swing, with all appliances being used, he said usage never once dipped to the point where the intelligent controls would have automatically tripped the system over to BCM supply. — mikel@dispatch.co.za
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