Big Vision for Solar Water Heating in South Africa

November 22nd, 2009 | Categories: News | Tags: ,

As a result of the intensive efforts to jump start a massive role out of solar water heaters in South Africa, there is quite a bit of confusion as to what is a realistic target for installing solar water heaters in South Africa.

Let’s consider what would be required in order to install 1 million systems by 2014.  Assuming that we install 5 days per week and allow installers to take off regular public holidays, if we start January 1st 2010 and finish June 1st 2014, we would require 463 plumbers and 925 laborers assuming an installation rate of 2 per team per day.  This is entirely possible however when considering that there are only a total of 3,000 qualified plumbers throughout South Africa, it is clear that a significant training program is required. This is not impossible but it will take some time to reach full capacity.  Here are my calculations.

Start Jan-10 End Jun-14 Total days 1,612 Total number of SWH installed 1,000,000 Installed systems per day (assuming no breaks of weekends or holidays) 620 Holidays and weekends per year 118 Total days 1,081 Installed systems per day (assuming breaks of weekends and holidays) 925 Number of plumbers (est. 2 systems installed per plumber per day) 463 Number of laborors (2 per team per day) 2 laborors per team 925

For more details see:

http://www.engineeringnews.co.za/article/framework-in-place-for-big-solar-water-heater-vision-but-funding-needs-firming-2009-11-20

and

http://www.engineeringnews.co.za/article/second-take-the-rollout-of-one-million-solar-water-heaters-by-2014-2009-11-20

We can achieve the 1 million installations without any special funding requirements. All that the South African government needs to do is sign in an already drafted law that requires solar water heaters installed in every house that is larger than 500 m squared or costs more than R700,000. Each day that such a law is not implemented we loose another day, another lost opportunity and increased costs that goes with blackouts and load shedding.

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