The Sunday News
SOLAR power systems design and installation company, Solar Tech Africa, has embarked on a campaign to educate people on solar energy in a bid to make people understand how the solar system works including its benefits.
Solar Tech Africa manager, Mr Mehluli Dube, said the company had already visited Basch Street terminus popularly known as Egodini, Cowdray Park and Pumula South areas in Bulawayo and said they were in the process of identifying more strategic areas to do demonstrations on the system.
“We realised that people do not know much about solar systems and we saw this as an opportune moment with the persistent power cuts and interruption of electricity supply to households and businesses alike,” said Mr Dube.
Speaking on solar energy, Mr Dube said using solar for power was an advantage as a person was in control of their situation and there were no disruptions to power supply.
He said although the solar systems’ initial cost was very high, in the long run, one saved money and it would still be giving 80 percent efficiency in 25-30 years.
“You save money because you will not be paying any bills so the whole system is an ‘invest now to save in the long run’ situation” he said.
Other advantages are that using solar energy helps save the environment particularly the ozone layer which has been depleted due to pollution leading to the global warming and climate change.
Mr Dube said it also improved the value of properties.
“If you have a solar system installed at your house, the value of that property goes up. Solar energy is a reliable electricity supply and there is not much maintenance required,” he said.
Despite solar energy’s seeming advantages, a survey by Sunday Business showed that most people are not knowledgeable on the basics of using this system and how they can get it installed in their homes.
According to Solar Tech Africa, people need to know the appliances they need to power up as well as the size of those appliances in terms of the energy they consume and have an estimated time of how many hours they intend to use the appliances.
Mr Dube said having this prior knowledge would help solar system designers design a system that works efficiently and suits each person’s individual needs as people use power differently. He said designers align all the components in a system to suit each other.
The major disadvantage of the solar system is the initial costs which are exorbitant.
“We are working on a strategy to make these systems accessible to everyone but I cannot disclose what the strategy is at this point nor give you a timeframe on when it will be in place but we are aware that the high costs are a problem for most people,” said Mr Dube.
