The Magic of Solar-Powered Lights:

• Eco-Friendly: Solar lights use sunlight, not electricity, reducing your carbon footprint.
• Cost-Effective: While they may cost more initially, solar lights save you money in the long run.
• Easy Installation: No wires or electricians needed—just place and light.
• No Outages: Built-in batteries ensure your lights won’t go out during the festivities.
• Endless Styles: Solar lights come in various designs, offering choices for every theme.

This festive season, consider making the switch to solar-powered lights. Not only will you be reducing your environmental impact, but you’ll also enjoy the cost savings and the hassle-free installation process. Embrace the magic of solar-powered celebrations and light up your holidays in a sustainable and dazzling way.

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What are the advantages of using solar water heating.

1. Reliability: Because it uses natural source of energy, solar geysers provide a reliable hot water supply, no need to depend on the loadshedding schedule. This ensure to bring peace in your household even when there is not electricity.
2. Resource-friendly: Making use of Solar water systems allow used to live in a more sustainable way by using clean and renewable energy coming from the sun.
3. Government Support: The South African government encourages the adoption of renewable energy solutions.
4. Environmental friendly: Solar water heating help to contribute on a cleaner environment, by reducing the dependency on fossil fuel-based energy.
5. Energy and Cost Savings: Solar geysers harness the abundant sunlight to heat water, significantly reducing the need for electricity or gas for water heating. This translates to substantial energy savings and lower monthly utility bills.

In conclusion, by adopting solar water heating homeowners can enjoy the benefits of energy savings, environmental responsibility, government support, and reliable hot water supply. It’s a wise investment that promotes sustainability while providing long-term cost savings.

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Solar panels are the energy of the future and like all discoveries, it’s always present at a high price on the market. But analysis shows that since 2015 solar panel prices are constantly reducing since there are now many manufacturers or providers of solar panels.
It’s easy to install solar panels but to avoid high maintenance costs it’s preferable to use a reliable manufacturer.

2. Panels only work in clear sky/weather

Solar panels work in any type of clouds days. But their productivity level is strictly dependent on the clarity of the clouds. For example, on a rainy cloud solar panels can work on average up to 35% of their productivity level.

3. Panels are dangerous to the environment.
Solar panel parts/ elements are strictly made from recyclable materials.

4. Panels required constant maintenance.
Once install solar panels don’t need to be moved. So they don’t require a lot of maintenance. But as with every machine, they require a periodic inspection (Just to make sure that everything works perfectly and that there’s no alert for any upcoming issue)

5. Panels installation prices are estimated according to the size of your home
When installing solar panels, many elements are considered, such as the direction of the sun, the shape of your roof, etc.
The technician must make sure that the panels are positioned to best capture the sunlight.

6. Panels don’t have a lifetime.
The average maximum lifetime for solar panels is 25 years and then the materials can be recycled and replaced.

7. Solar panels damaged the quality of your roof
Note that Solar panels are placed on top of the roof, not on the roof, there’s usually a gap between the panels and the roof which in a way protects your roof from any damage. It’s believed that where the panels are placed on your roof, by covering the section, they play a form of protection against any natural damages that can impact that section of your roof.

8. Solar panels reduce the price of electricity.

Having solar panels allows you to save on electricity prices as you depend less on the electricity provided by your municipality and more on natural resources.

9. The more panels, the less the electricity bill will be
Solar panels are installed based on the size of the house and the amount of energy that can be potentially used.
You usually don’t buy more than what you will use.

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Solar panels also known as photovoltaic panels are used to convert the energy created from the sun into electricity that eventually can be used to power electrical loads.

How does it work?

Simply, the solar panels are composed of photovoltaic cells (PV cells), so when the energy coming from the sun is in contact with the solar panel, the PV cells collected that energy and transform it into electrical charges which are collected by the electrical fields install inside the panel, causing the electricity to flow.

Advantages of using solar panels

1. Drastically reduce or eliminate your electricity bills

By using natural energy, you are reducing or eliminating the use of electricity provided by your utility.

2. Renewable source of energy

Because solar energy is dependent on the sun’s energy. It’s considered to be a source of renewable energy, which implies that unlike other sources of energy, with solar energy you cannot run out of electricity.

3. Cheaper to maintain

Even though they seem too pricey to install, they are cheaper to maintain as they don’t require to be constantly clean.

4. Contribution to a healthy ecosystem

As solar panels collect pure energy from the sun, investing in solar panels helps to contribute to the positive ecosystem (Essentially this means that solar panels are environmentally friendly products and will not harm the planet). It helps to fight the emissions of greenhouse gas and slowly reduce our dependency on fossil fuels.

5. Ability to store the power collected for later

Solar panels usually are installed with solar batteries that help you to store the power generated during a certain time and to use it later on.

Disadvantages of using solar panels

   1. Costly

Yes, buying solar panels seems to be expensive due to the different materials that need to be installed with them. Because it’s an energy that is still developing and promising a bright future, the price will decrease in the nearest future.

2. Not fully reliable/ Weather dependent

Because solar panels are dependable on sunshine, the weather plays a big role in their functionality. So basically, the solar panel requires sunny weather to be functional.

3. Installation area

When it comes to the installation of solar panels, the available space or area is really important and needs to be considered a priority, solar panels are in terms of size really large products and due to the different materials and sizes that need to be installed with it, the available space is really important.

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There are quite a lot advantage and disadvantage of Solar Energy:

Advantage

• Renewable Energy Source (available as long as we have the sun)
• Reduces Electricity Bills (Save money because you make use of solar energy)
• Diverse Application
• Low maintenance costs
• Technology Development (Improving the future)

Disadvantage 

• Cost (The cost to install solar energy is quite high but prices will go down in the future)
• Weather Dependent (Can still be collected during rainy and cloudy days but the effectiveness of the solar will drop.)
• Storage is expensive
• Use a lot of space
• Related with Pollution

Solar energy that are produce can be stored in batteries to use in a later stage. If the battery’s capacity is high, there can be more energy stored. You can install the battery as part of your solar system then you can store the excess energy near your home. The only way to send back the electricity to the grid is when the battery is fully charged.

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More than 38.8 per cent energy is produced from gas. The record of the business and energy department shows that 1 per cent is produced by coal. There were very low – carbon energy and for that reason a new of 57.3 per cent was reached. Strong levels of generations were the outcome because of the low output from nuclear reactors.

Statistics shows that ongoing switch away from fossil fuels namely Coal. For cleaner sources of energy the government came to the decision to take action and get it all settle.

After the election victory the committee on Climate change wrote to Borris Johnson, telling him to deliver 40 gigawatts of the offshore wind by 2030. Also that the producing needs to be cut in some areas, transport, industry, heating homes and agriculture.

In 2050 the government would like to reduce the greenhouse gas. Almost 20 per cent of our energy is produced by wind.

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So if you’re not already aware of this new energy plan, let’s unpack it a little bit. The policy includes some surprising interventions. Some of these notable interventions include the following:

Coal Dependence

Currently, in terms of the total energy generation in South Africa, coal accounts for 77% of that across all it’s coal plants. According to the IRP, the projection is that by the year 2030, this percentage would have been reduced to somewhere in the region of 60% of all energy production in the country. So still heavily dependent on coal fired plants which environmentalist are especially not pleased about.

Renewable Energy?

Despite coal still playing a significant role in energy generation, there is space for a shift towards renewables. According to the IRP, government expects to hike the contribution made to the grid by wind generated energy infrastructures. In the initial draft version of the IRP, released last year, wind generated energy was only supposed to deliver 13% of SA’s electricity by 2030– this has now been increased to more than 18%.

By 2030, solar will supply 7% of electricity. Hydro plants will contribute 8%, nuclear 4.5% and the rest from gas and diesel.

New Coal Plants

The newly released IRP indicates that government notes a business case for the construction of modular and smaller power plants producing between 300mw and 600mw. Particularly in the face of some of the current fleet of power plants being decommissioned in the coming years. Nuclear is very expensive at commissioning and at decommissioning, but when it is operational it is “most reliable and cost effective,” Mantashe told journalists on Friday.

Nuclear reactors planned?

Montalto said that new nuclear capacity does not come onstream before 2030, but discussion of work to start on scoping new nuclear is in the plan for coming on grid beyond 2030.

The IRP argued that smaller nuclear plants will be easier managed investments when compared to large-scale projects. But government acknowledges that these could take more than 10 years to construct, and no additional nuclear power is set to come online before 2030.

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Under former state president Jacob Zuma’s administration, the then minister of energy tried to push through a nuclear energy deal with Russian energy company, Rostom, which, had it succeeded, would have effectively bankrupted the country’s coffers. Civil society organisations challenged the deal in court and won, and it was finally shelved when Cyril Ramaphosa became president.

To this end, Mantashe commented, “The fact that we suspected corruption doesn’t mean that nuclear is irrelevant for the country in 2019.” South Africa still remains the only country on the African continent with a commercial nuclear power plant. The Koeberg nuclear power plant, which houses two nuclear reactors, generates 5% of South Africa’s electricity productions.

On the country’s future power plans, Mantashe emphasized the importance of undoing the tensions between renewable energy and coal in securing energy solutions that are required to meet demands. With regards to this, he explained that there are no full commitment by the government to move towards nuclear at this stage, but rather a commitment to explore all energy options.

We all hope this vision is expedited in a move to stabilize the country’s power grid.

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The SOLTRAIN projects includes a district heating plant for Wits University residences and a solar process heating plant for the Klein Karoo International tannery. The Wits Junction district heating project combines solar, co-generation, and gas heating technologies. This project would serve 14 student residence buildings that house 1,103 students supplied by hot water from one centralized hot water plant room. This installation includes a 600m² solar heating plant with 10m²collectors.

The project is estimated to save Wits an estimated R40 million over the course of 20 years, with considerable savings seen over an 8 month trial period. An image of how this solar plant is set up can be seen below.

The Klein Karoo tannery installed 600 m² solar system as it seeks to reduce its costs and increase its competitiveness. Stellenbosch University predicts a payback of 6.5 years based on a financial model analysis from the feasibility study, which includes maintenance, finance costs, and all system-related expenses – this after approaching the Klein Karoo tannery with this proposal.

Dr Karen Surridge commented:

 “SANEDI is delighted to be associated with such landmark developments that put the SOLTRAIN projects firmly on the renewables table.

The successful conference we have just held with SOLTRAIN partners indicates the relevance of this highly successful programme for the SADC renewable energy strategy and the development in successful systems across six countries.”

Dr Karen Surridge is the centre manager for the renewable energy centre at SANEDI.

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What are the facts?

So what exactly causes global warming? This occurs as a result of Carbon Dioxide and other greenhouse gases causes the Earth to warm. According an article by NASA, the average surface temperature has risen 0.9 degrees celsius since the late 19th century – 2016 being the warmest year ever recorded. As a result, we are seeing a loss of ice mass, Greenland having lost an average of 281 billion tons of ice, Antartica 119 billion tons, per year between 1993 and 2016. Snow cover in the northern hemisphere has decreased over the past 5 decades, and are melting earlier. Another very scary phenomenon are the global rise in sea level, by 8 inches, with the rate accelerating in the last two decades with the number of recorded high temperature events increasing.

(Pic: courtesy of NASA)

This has seen a effort from governments all over the world to collaborate and come up with progressive regulations and plans to reduce emissions in a bid to claw back the damage that’s being down to earth’s atmosphere.

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