Rather give households solar power than try to reform Eskom

Early in the current load-shedding wave, independent energy expert Ted Blom ridiculed the idea of renewable energy as a solution. There are times when the sun doesn’t shine and there’s no wind. What he says is true but is an outdated view.

Better in terms of efficiency is batteries – pumped storage is about 80% efficient whereas a good battery is over 90% efficient. The main advantage of pumped storage is its longevity. The best lithium ion batteries last 10 to 15 years, depending how much and how often they are drained, whereas a hydro plant should last 50 to 150 years without performance deterioration.

However, there is an even better idea out there than batteries that last over 10 years and incremental improvements on how often and how deeply they can discharge – supercapacitors. New York-based Kilowatt Labs claims to have changed all that with supercapacitor storage that is practical for renewable back-ups. Their Sirius supercap systems cost about twice as much as an equivalent lithium ion battery but are rated at a million cycles and 45 years of life, close to the low end of the lifetime of pumped storage.

But in a context where big projects often fail catastrophically, is grid-scale storage the best option?A home solar-plus-battery system for R200 000 can reduce electricity bills substantially. A system like this can recover the cost in saved electricity bills in about 10 years – at current prices. This may seem like a lot of money but a 10-year payback time makes it possible to add this sort of cost to your home loan.

Not everyone could afford this solution but it could be coupled with a larger number of households with a smaller smaller amount of solar or no batteries – for example, all RDP houses could be equipped with a 300W solar panel as a contribution to a free electricity allowance.

That is brilliant.

Many countries do this why can’t we do this?

They don't want that they just want to pick our pockets

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Eskom proposes users pay extra for solar energyEskom is looking for new ways to make money and consumers will have no choice but to comply if Nersa gives the green light for the proposal. Badakiwe . What? I must be missing something here. Does this relate to people who have set up their own solar systems? So Eskom wants to charge for sun rays?
Source: eNCA - 🏆 49. / 51 Read more »