South Africa has abundant sunshine and raw materials, but still imports lots of solar panels — at great expense. A women-run company produces them locally and at lower cost, providing jobs and better access to legal electricity — also for poor communities.
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00:00 Things are happening in South Africa's solar sector.
00:04 The country is finally manufacturing its own solar modules
00:08 in this plant, which Energy Africa opened
00:11 at Cape Town in 2023.
00:13 The workforce is women only.
00:16 The company wants to set an example
00:19 in an industry that's male dominated.
00:21 The solar panels produced here are also different.
00:25 They're smaller than usual and also more affordable.
00:29 The company hopes its home field advantage
00:31 will give it a competitive edge over imported panels.
00:35 What makes us special is that we are able
00:37 to get the raw materials in cheaper.
00:40 Then we are able to manufacture the products locally,
00:45 which cuts down on the price.
00:48 And then it's also easier for us to distribute
00:51 to our other warehouses that are situated in Malawi
00:54 and all the other places in Africa.
00:57 South Africa has seen a massive growth
00:59 in its solar industry over the past few years,
01:03 but it comes with a hefty price tag.
01:06 The majority of these solar panels are imported,
01:09 over $600 million worth so far this year.
01:12 While most of the solar industry's growth
01:16 is in the business and residential sectors,
01:19 people living in informal settlements
01:21 without access to legal electricity
01:23 can now also benefit from the locally produced panels.
01:28 This single 50 watt panel produced
01:30 by Energy Africa's Women Run Factory
01:33 costs less than $20 and includes a power bank and LED panel.
01:38 Candles used to be Robert Young's only source of light.
01:43 Now he finally has other options.
01:46 You're really limited in what you can do.
01:48 Even cooking's a hassle.
01:50 And with this light, this light will give me,
01:53 if it's fully charged, it'll burn right through the night.
01:56 Till the following morning, I can read,
01:59 I can clean, I can do odd jobs and what have you.
02:04 I can do reparations on things and things
02:07 I was limited to do before.
02:10 More than 80% of South Africa's energy
02:14 is produced by coal-fired power stations,
02:17 but aging infrastructure and mismanagement
02:20 at state-owned power company Eskom
02:23 has resulted in rolling blackouts.
02:26 Load shedding has become part of daily life.
02:28 Sometimes there are over 10 hours of outages a day,
02:32 a significant cost to the economy.
02:35 Eskom, which has strong links to the government,
02:37 has long had a monopoly of selling electricity,
02:41 but the solar sector hopes that the energy crisis
02:44 is forcing the government to focus more on renewables.
02:48 I think with the struggling grid
02:49 and with the struggling utility at the moment,
02:52 they've got no other choice but to promote renewable energy
02:55 and actually jump on board.
02:57 But yes, I think slowly but surely the wheels are turning
03:01 to promote renewable energy in South Africa.
03:03 As the solar industry continues to expand,
03:06 so do opportunities.
03:08 A provider of building integrated photovoltaics,
03:11 ACES Africa, has developed an academy
03:14 to train and certify solar installers for the workforce,
03:17 providing potential employment opportunities
03:21 in a country with nearly 33% unemployment,
03:25 these opportunities are definitely welcome.
03:27 It serves you well and it gives you qualification
03:32 and certification as a solar installer
03:35 and with a few other career opportunities also
03:39 that is available for you.
03:41 One of the major drivers of the country's uptick in solar
03:44 has come from private industry,
03:46 securing its own solutions to the worsening power crisis.
03:50 At this facility, cakes, croissants and rolls
03:54 are baked in ovens and then frozen,
03:56 stored and shipped for the retail sector 24 hours a day.
04:01 Baking and freezing both require a lot of power.
04:04 Several years ago,
04:06 the company installed their first solar array
04:09 and now they are looking to expand
04:10 their renewable energy capacity.
04:13 We started off by utilizing just power generated
04:16 throughout the day,
04:18 not really looking too much at storage of power.
04:21 However, we are now busy with our second phase,
04:23 which is to install a one megawatt battery,
04:25 which will store some of the energy that we generate
04:27 through our solar array
04:29 to carry us through load shedding hours in the evening.
04:32 And we intend to, within the next two to three years,
04:35 be completely self-reliant from our power utility
04:38 and run purely off battery and solar power
04:41 during daylight hours, as well as during load shedding.
04:44 Currently, being able to install solar
04:47 is a privilege for larger businesses,
04:49 with small companies lacking the capital funds
04:52 to install major systems to keep the lights on.
04:56 But there is a shift.
04:57 Energy Africa has recently started manufacturing a panel
05:01 with nearly seven times the capacity
05:04 of their original product.
05:06 And there's plenty of reason to believe
05:08 that this is just the beginning.
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