A small Freestate town goes green with Solar Power

Frankfort on the Wilge, is a small rural nest in the northern Freestate.

Since December 2011 this small town has a green house, or rather, a normal house with a brand new hybrid solar system that makes green power.

In December 2011 Mrs. Steyn decided that she needs to go green and most importantly, she wanted to cut her Eskom power bill. She has been living in this beautiful town now for 40 years and has watch in horror how her power bill has gone up more that 700% over the last 10 years.

The 1,7kW hybrid solar system was commissioned on December 15th and since then, even with summer thunder storms, have been producing between 9 and 13 kW/h green clean energy per day. On the 15th the whole town was standing in the summer sun watching the workers form Iskhus Power from JHB, putting up the 10 ZNshine 190Watt panels, with a cup of "boere troos" coffee. Quit the show for this small town.

She was so happy with the 10 panels and SMA Sunnyboy 1700 that she started wring down how much she made every day. She has also involved her neighbours, by offering them that she will cook the Christmas roast for them during the day when they are at work using free solar energy.

Well the surprise came last week when she got her first power bill, and yes, the savings are more than noticeable, it was big! The meter was read the 29th December and the system started putting green power into her house on December 15th, and in only 13 days she cut almost 50% of her normal power bill.

This system produces power together with the local grid, so this system works without batteries and expensive equipment. When the sun shines, she uses green power, and when the sun has gone to bed, Eskom power is fed into here house again. This all happens without even having to do anything at all! The clever German SMA inverter does everything without help from outside.

And the most exciting point is that this system will pay itself in under 6 years with the current Eskom tariff.
This system was only R42 000 and with the current free fall of solar panels and inverters the price for these systems will fall even more.

I will update this blog as we build more and more of these systems, to bring you more stories of normal people that are making a difference by going green and saving money and the earth, without changing the way they live their daily lives.