Standard Bank registers to facilitate installation of solar water heaters

Solar water heater (SWH) installers can register projects of a thousand heaters or more with the Standard Bank Low Pressure Solar Water Heater Programme for South Africa, earning Euros from the carbon credits generated by their projects and sold on their behalf by Standard Bank's carbon trading division.

"Most solar water heater installers are small to medium enterprises and the cost of registering their own CDM programme would be onerous," says Geoff Sinclair, head of Standard Bank's carbon trading division. "Also, the process of selling the credits requires specialist knowledge.

Programme offers social benefits

"Our programme relieves them of those problems while giving them access to additional revenue streams at the nominal cost we charge to do the administration of registering them for our programme. And, because the installers can also take advantage of Eskom rebates, the overall effect of the programme is that low income householders will get hot water free of charge or at minimal cost."

The programme confers significant other social, economic, and environmental benefits. It gives a sizeable boost to the government's target of rolling out one million solar water heaters by 2014. Because it provides training for technicians to install and maintain solar systems, it will lead to skills development and to employment opportunities in the solar sector. The provision of hot water to residents will help improve municipal and local government service delivery.

Environmentally, the programme will help create a sustainable low carbon economy, by making use of renewable energy and enabling a reduction in fossil-fuelled electricity usage, thereby lowering the country's greenhouse gas emissions.

Quality will not be compromised

At an economic level, because water heating accounts for a third to a half of energy consumption in the average household and, therefore, a major demand on the nation's electricity grid, the programme will help to reduce pressure on demand and instances of load shedding. Standard Bank will act as the co-ordinator of the programme, ensuring that all participating installers, suppliers, sub-contractors, and SWH systems meet the specified standards of the programme and that the quality of the systems and installations is not compromised.

"We're now celebrating the registration of our own SWH programme by giving installers a two-month window in which we will waive the nominal upfront costs of their registering their projects with us," Sinclair says. "We already have three installers on the programme and we expect that once people become aware of how easy our programme makes it for them to participate in the fast-growing renewable energy sector, many more will jump at the chance to register."