South Africa – RoofTop & Distributed Solar Market – Outlook, Opportunities & Challenges: EQ’s Webinar
Powered by LONGi, EQ Magazine presented a webinar on ‘South Africa – RoofTop & Distributed Solar Market – Outlook, Opportunities & Challenges’. The speakers of the webinar shared their insights on the topic.
Panellists discussed business models, policy and regulations, financing, business opportunities, the situation in detail. Also, the 14 panellists talked about trends, opportunities and challenges specifically on Solar Rooftop in South Africa.
Tony Tiyou, Founder and CEO, Renewables in Africa, participated in the webinar as moderator. The panellists included Wessel Wessels, Founder & CEO, Journey2Green; Kevin Robinson, Technical Sales, LONGi Solar, MEA; T. Thabo Moyo,Business Development Lead – Omang Green Energy; Jo Dean, Vice Chair – South African Renewable Energy Council (SAREC); Kwabena Okai Ofosuhene, Founder & CEO -Abibiman Global; Liesel Prinsloo, Business Development-Director – Candi solar; Vincent Maposa, Founder & CEO – Wetility Energy; Frederick Opoku Agyekum, Senior consultant (Africa) – Ecosource Canada Inc; Ramveer Yadav, Head-EPC Execution – Jakson Group; Ayman Rasekh, Chairman & CEO – SOLARSOL EG; Ahmed Ali, Energy Expert- Natural Resources and Sustainable Production Stream; Amit Kumar, PV Designer – LTM Energy, and Sachhin Patra, Senior Manager- EnKing International (EKI Energy Services Ltd)
Tony Tiyou introduced the topic and shared about his company ‘Renewables in Africa’. He said, “As well as being a media platform, we are also a developer. So, clean energy company offering to businesses clean energy solutions.”
About LONGi Solar
Kevin Robinson, Technical Sales, LONGi Solar, MEA, shared some key points on LONGi Solar. “Currently, the world’s largest module manufacturer. Last year, we were the first manufacturer to ship over 20 GW in a single year.” As of Q1 2021, LONGi has a total shipment of over 24 GW.
“We have been shown consistently to be the most bankable module brand with the only manufacturer having AAA rating from PVTech. Looking at the Altman-Z Score index, we got the highest Altman-Z Score showing we are a strong financially stable company and sustainability is, for us, one of the key points.”
He said energy yield is a very important thing for PV projects. He further talked about other technical things and testing. “We focus not only on quality but we look at reliability and performance as well. In terms of investment in R&D, we are one of the largest investors out of major manufacturers. Since, 2012, we have invested over a billion dollars in research and development.”
Also, he informed about the solar for the solar program announced by the chairman of the company. Wherein, the company uses renewable energy to produce the modules and cells. “We are using renewable energy to create renewable energy,” he said. Summarizing his speech, he said, “We are a technology company. Sustainability and technology are a part of our DNA. Hopefully, in Africa, they are going to grow from strength to strength.”
Journey2Green
Sharing his views on the distributed energy space, Wessel Wessels, Founder & CEO, Journey2Green “I’ve been in the industry for more than 15 years, actively involved in renewable energy from2013. we have always been involved in distributed energy space.”
My view on distributed energy is that it is first the foundational infrastructure. So, once you’ve got electricity it unlocks many other services Like for instance telecom, access to information, banking, ability to trade etc. I am a big believer that current challenges that we are facing is not just about central generation giving the power to where it’s needed.”
“Our whole focus at Journey2Green is on Distributed Energy Space.” Our go-to market model is basically retouching basically three areas which are high volume business which is typically residential and C&I. He said that the company is getting quite involved in the mining and it has got quite a few interesting opportunities. We are in Distributed Energy Space and also in finance.”
“The way we address these needs is basically we take our customer through three main phases- visualization (understand how the customer is using power), optimization (we introduce energy efficiencies like LED lights and more) and energize (where solar and storage comes in). We have got many case studies where customers typically saw 50 per cent saving by following these three steps.”
Discussing typical challenges in the market, he talked about value chain, operational management, standards and proposals. “We have a standard in South Africa but there is no industry body currently enforcing those standards which is also a problem. Nobody really implements proper operational management and so that’s quite a big focus for us.”
South Africa Market
Jo Dean, Vice Chair – South African Renewable Energy Council (SAREC), shared her insights on the topic. She said, “South Africa service sector welcomed the reform to increase licensing exemption threshold for embedded generation projects. We have seen it move from 1 GW to a mass of 100 MW. This has definitely been a watershed moment for the dynamic renewable energy industry in South Africa.”
“It really opens up the gates for the development of vast, robust, commercial and industrial service sector. This has created the opportunity for the PBN storage hybridization.”
If you think from a South Africa perspective, all grid-connected, embedded and Distributed Generations will still need to comply with the green code. They will be authorized they will still be authorized, certified by either the municipal electricity distributor. He’s still registered with the National Energy Regulator.”
“These projects would also serve to increase electricity supply very quickly in South Africa.” She further said, “Sustainable energy has seen exponential growth in South Africa.” Also, she talked about the need for economic recovery.
Speaking on Decarbonization, she said, “We need to provide ambitious, technically and economically feasible pathways to the deployment of low carbon technology. We need to build a sustainable and clean energy future. To maximize the clean energy transition, we need policy frameworks.”
Role of Local Government and community
Kwabena Okai Ofosuhene, Founder & CEO, Abibiman Global, talked about Sustainable Development Goals in his address. He said, “SDGs have three main pillars- incorporated them into local policy frameworks, citizenship engagement to stimulate mutual accountability and private sector infrastructure development with government support.
These three components work very well. We would not be having the challenges that we are currently having. The problem we are having is that there is not much cooperation, collaboration and partnership,” he said.
“If you come to European countries, individuals are putting solar installations on the rooftops because the system pays for itself. This goes a long way to help these countries minimize their dependence on dirty energy. Therefore, making sustainable policies work for everybody.
Individuals have confidence in the infrastructure they invest in because they know that they can put insurance policies on them. And when there are issues, this can also be amended for them to have clean energy. All these are not in Africa.
Africa has so much radiation and the potential to expand the use of solar in generating energy. So many people are not having access to energy. This could have been solved by some amount of money.”
Talking about the reason for people not installing solar and call to action, he said, “They still do not have confidence that they can deliver when they need it. So, this is a combining policy to drive these initiatives for individuals to start having the confidence that if I invest USD 10,000 into the installations, I would be able to recoup my money over 10 or 15 years time.
Government can also make this funding available this funding where individuals can install these systems which will be paid off over time. We should look at how to make policies and investments work hand in hand.
We should see the private sector and the state or local government work hand in hand to research, innovate and encourage people and individuals to go into private installations.”
Trends, Opportunities, Challenges and Policies
- Thabo Moyo, Business Development Lead, Omang Green Energy spoke about trends, opportunities, challenges and policies that will encourage people to install a lot more solar. He introduced his company saying, “We look to focus in the commercial industrial space as well as utility-scale.
We look to provide value to our customers primarily two alternate finding solutions. I think South Africa has a lot of policies and frameworks. we stumble in the effective implementation of the policies and frameworks.”
He further spoke on White Paper on Energy and other key policies. Also, he talked about the Paris Agreement. “This gives quite a clear direction in terms of the policy as to where we should be heading informed by clean and sustainable technologies.”
“We require different approaches that will address the energy deficit we have at the moment. We see an interplay between the different sectors that is important because it allows lessons and learnings to be transferred. The problem is huge and we need various role players to hold hands and advance and implement the policy that’s in place.”
Liesel Prinsloo, Business Development Director, Candi Solar in her address talked about the financing aspect, she enlightened the audience about the industry landscape. Speaking of the solar industry, she said, “We still have a way to go but I believe we are on the dawn of the most favourable time for the solar.
She spoke on few key points around retail financing of rooftop solar projects. Talking about the present landscape, she said, “South Africans will have to purchase and finance their own solar systems. the energy in South Africa will be driven by the private sector. It is basically worldwide”.
About Wetility
Vincent Maposa, Founder & CEO, Wetility Energy spoke about his company. Introducing Wetility, he said, “It is a technological company. our focus is on creating a platform for renewable energy use across residential and light commercial rights. We are a technology company focusing on software, hardware and financing. The primary purpose of that is to give people an end-to-end solution within one house.
From sort of a simple definition, what we’re trying to sort is, there are two primary problems that but other homeowners or small businesses space in South Africa which is rising Electricity prices and secondly, lack of power and unavailability of power during load shedding. For that particular reason, we decided to focus on the three aspects which is software hardware and financing.
We have built a software called We-X which takes a customer, residential and light commercial, from digital marketing interface right up to post-installation, remote monitoring, and basically creating a seamless sort of journey, from actual first interaction design installation to post-installation and remote monitoring. And, it also provides a view on the benefits that the customer is getting on a regular thing.”
“Secondly, we look at the interface between the hardware and the software.” He further spoke on the key issues faced by customers with hardware. He informed about the hybrid energy storage system called the PACE which is an all in one cabinet that houses inverter, batteries and all switch gears. It is a plug and plays model. He further explained the financing side.
Barriers in Solar Market
Amit Kumar, PV Designer, LTM Energy spoke on the barriers to entering the solar market. He introduced his company and spoke on the barriers to the solar market, industry development and growth in solar in South Africa. Highlighting the barriers, he said that first thing is that the solar market is young and it is rapidly growing in South Africa.
“Second point is the limited public funding. To achieve the goals, we need a significant amount of investment in renewable energy infrastructure. Third, we have a lack of private funding. The reason for that is we have lots of financial terms and conditions, high initial costs, tariff discussion etc. The volume of private investors is limited.”
He said that another issue is about trust on companies. The investors take time to trust a company. “Next, is lack of local technical support on products. There are lots of technologies coming up in the market but all are not local or have technical local support. So, then we have the problem of selecting products,” he added.
“Companies are also not taking a risk and they are not open for new technologies. Another point is lack of quality product for small consumers.” He added that some documentation also takes time.
Sharing views on the topic, Ahmed Ali, Energy Expert – Natural Resources and Sustainable Production Stream, said that rooftop solar has some advantages over large solar plants.
He also said that we need to work on economic recovery. “We need the government to support by the example of installation of PV modules widely at government institutions like airports, education institutes, residential sector and commercial.” He further spoke on challenges and policy and frameworks. He also shared his views on barriers to import elements.
Ramveer Yadav, Head- EPC Execution, Jakson Group, spoke on the challenges in execution. He shared about the international project commissioned by his company in Togo, West Africa. Talking about the challenges, he informed, that they transported manpower from India. For the execution of the project, they trained the local people.
The second challenge they faced was related to the arrangement of machinery. The third challenge was regarding the availability of material which they transported from different countries. Another challenge was about the method and standards. The environment was also a challenge in the execution of the project.
Carbon Credits
Informed, “From the carbon credit perspective, for South African projects, there are two opportunities available. One is the South African carbon tax and then the international voluntary market.” He informed on the international mechanisms or programs when projects can be registered and carbon offsets can be issued.
He talked about carbon offsets in the market of South Africa in detail. “EnKing is one of the largest carbon offset consulting companies in the world. It is also a listed company in India and we have our sales office in South Africa,” he added.
Frederick Opoku Agyekum, Senior consultant (Africa) – Ecosource Canada Inc, said, “Having an investment platform can help create a very right environment and attractive investments. There is also a group to scale up investment through facilitating development or bankable project. Clean energy investment is an essential element in the market.” The webinar concluded with a question and answer round.
