{"id":783536,"date":"2024-07-22T07:48:01","date_gmt":"2024-07-22T05:48:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=783536"},"modified":"2024-07-22T07:48:06","modified_gmt":"2024-07-22T05:48:06","slug":"south-african-companies-are-over-investing-in-solar-power-and-face-risks-by-doing-so","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/industry-news\/783536\/south-african-companies-are-over-investing-in-solar-power-and-face-risks-by-doing-so\/","title":{"rendered":"South African companies are over-investing in solar power \u2013 and face risks by doing so"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Discovery Green recently conducted extensive research into how South African companies are investing in sustainable energy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The study, which included over 300 business properties across 58 companies, discovered that in many cases the current approaches to sustainable energy are short-sighted and risky.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.discoverygreen.co.za\/marketing\/discoverygreen\/whitepaper\/?utm_source=BusinessTech&amp;utm_medium=Sponsored+Article&amp;utm_term=July+2024\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Click here to download the Discovery Green report.<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>In particular, Discovery Green noted a worrying trend of overinvestment in solar energy systems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This trend can be attributed to the considerable immediate value smaller embedded solar systems generate and the decrease in solar panel prices in South Africa in recent years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cWe believe there is currently a pronounced bias towards solar energy and while the immediate financial benefits of solar energy are clear, there is a tendency to overlook the long-term consequences, opting instead for short-term gains,\u201d said Andre Nepgen, Head of Discovery Green.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Long-term risks<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Discovery Green\u2019s study found that companies over-investing in solar &#8211; particularly embedded systems \u2013 may experience weaker long-term value due to \u201cwasted\u201d power.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Embedded solar systems often run without extensive battery storage, meaning they cannot bank enough of their excess generated energy for use when the sun goes down.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This leads to power generated by solar panels not being used by the company &#8211; reducing the financial value it receives from its solar system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Furthermore, when the sun is down, and solar energy cannot be used, a company must still source electricity from other sources. This will include the national electricity grid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Much of this externally-sourced electricity will be required during off-peak periods, which is late at night and early in the morning during the week, significant parts of Saturday, and the whole of Sunday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>To provide insight into how much \u201coff-peak\u201d electricity a company will use, Discovery Green stated that if an organisation can service around 60% of its total electricity demand with solar, 85% of the company\u2019s remaining electricity requirement will comprise off-peak use.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This is up from 48% for companies that don\u2019t have their own embedded solar generation and shows that solar primarily replaces a business\u2019s peak electricity consumption &#8211; and does little to address \u201coff-peak\u201d electricity costs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Making matters worse is that electricity from the national grid is more expensive during these off-peak periods \u2013 compounding the lost value from an over-investment in renewable energy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Wheeled solar<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>A solution available to South African businesses to combat their need for power from the national grid is to use wheeled solar.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Wheeled solar can complement their embedded solar system and help the company avoid expensive electricity tariffs employed by Eskom and local municipalities \u2013 particularly during off-peak periods.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Companies must note, however, that providers of wheeled solar are also likely to use time-of-use billing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This is because they offer a limited supply of battery-stored electricity during off-peak periods, as opposed to the actively-generated solar power they can wheel during the day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Discovery Green\u2019s research found that businesses which replace 45% of their energy needs with solar typically face a 77% premium to fulfil their remaining power requirements with renewable energy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">The solution<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Discovery Green said that investing in solar systems is still a good idea, as long as it done in a measured approach.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It stressed the importance of embracing a diverse range of renewable energy sources, too, including alternatives like wind power.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This way, a company can adapt to environmental concerns and won\u2019t be as severely impacted by future changes to power tariffs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The full Discovery Green report offers many insights into renewable energy &#8211; <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.discoverygreen.co.za\/marketing\/discoverygreen\/whitepaper\/?utm_source=BusinessTech&amp;utm_medium=Sponsored+Article&amp;utm_term=July+2024\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">click here to download the report.<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A recent study by Discovery Green highlighted several key problems with how South African companies are approaching renewable energy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":57,"featured_media":783555,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10459],"tags":[20242],"class_list":["post-783536","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-industry-news","tag-discovery-green"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/783536","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/57"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=783536"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/783536\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":783551,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/783536\/revisions\/783551"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/783555"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=783536"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=783536"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=783536"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}