Modern house with solar panels for energy storage. (Getty Images)
- GoSolr plans to spend R10 billion to roll out its solar panel and battery rental model on a larger scale.
- The company is pricing most of its products at around 1,400 to 2,900 rang per month, but is considering cheaper systems aimed at less affluent households.
- The company has received investment and financing from Patrice Motsepe's African Rainbow Capital Investments and Standard Bank.
- For more financial news, visit: News24 Business Top Page.
GoSolar, a company backed by South African billionaire Patrice Motsepe and South Africa's largest bank, plans to spend R10 billion to roll out a solar panel and battery rental model to households across the country hit by power outages. is.
The two-and-a-half-year-old company aims to install about 500MW of solar power generation capacity over four years. This is an increase from the current 70MW, GoSolr chief executive Andrew Middleton said. It has received investment and financing from Motsepe's African Rainbow Capital Investments and Standard Bank.
The company, which claims to be the largest of its kind in South Africa, is one of several companies taking advantage of the power outages and soaring electricity prices that have plagued the country since 2008.
Rooftop solar power generation in South Africa more than doubled to 5,440MW in March compared to the previous year. About 620MW of that was on residential land, according to data compiled by the Johannesburg-based company.
“That's our mission,” Middleton, 39, said Monday in an interview at GoSolr's headquarters. GoSolr, he said, “together with all the other companies, can end this crisis.”
Mr Middleton said future funding for the company would be in the form of debt and equity, with existing shareholders such as Mr Motsepe's ARC and Standard Bank also likely to contribute. The founders currently own less than half of GoSolr, but retain voting rights.
The company's subscription service competes with more expensive rent-to-buy operators and households who pay themselves the approximately R150,000 required to install a standard system of eight solar panels and 5 kilowatt hours of battery storage. There is.
South Africa has the world's highest solar power potential, but only 0.7% of its 17.8 million households use this technology for electricity. This compares to 31% in Australia, 4% in the UK and 3% in the US. According to GoSolr, 9.9% of the electricity generated in the country comes from solar power and 77% from coal.
Although solar power does not emit greenhouse gases, South Africa's dependence on coal makes it the world's 15th largest source of climate greenhouse gases.
Still, the system is out of reach for most South Africans.
GoSolr targets 2.2 million households earning more than R360,000 a year, and its subscription service is starting to save customers money in Cape Town, which has the highest electricity costs of South Africa's major cities. Savings for solar power users are expected to increase after national power utility Eskom won permission to increase tariffs by 12.7% this year, more than double the rate of inflation.
Earlier this year, power outages, locally known as load shedding, sometimes lasted more than 10 hours a day.
Middleton said his company charges about R1,400 to R2,900 per month for most of its products, but it is considering cheaper systems targeted at less affluent households.
“We started with a core that we can scale, and we can understand how the equipment works and what the credit profile looks like,” said Middleton, a former investment banker. ” he said. The company will then need to determine whether it can “continue to raise significant capital,” he said.
After that, it plans to look to the broader market.
