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Off The Grid
| Date: |
29 July 2010 07:00 |
| Producer: |
Nguni Productions
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| Presenter: |
Derek Watts
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| Show: | Carte Blanche Consumer |
The past few years have taken their toll on the South African home owner.
Municipal rates have gone through the roof; the price of electricity is set to double within the next three years and, in May this year, water boards across the country proposed increases of between 6.2% and 43%.
Woman 1: 'It's ridiculous!'
Man 1: 'It makes things so much harder.'
Man 2: 'But we have to pay it or they cut you off.'
Woman 2: 'I would consider using any alternative to a 45% hike.'
Derek Watts (Carte Blanche Consumer presenter): ''Going off the grid' is the new buzz phrase. By that we mean installing various green systems to reduce your electricity and water consumption. But what are the options to greening your house? What are the costs? And how much cash can you save?'
Andrea Barausse (Energywise): 'Everybody is looking for this magic wonder, this magic box that you plug in and everything just happens for you. But in essence it's really a small little step; a little bite at a time.'
Andrea Barausse owns a one-stop energy saving shop in Durban, and fits industrial businesses with energy efficient systems.
We asked Andrea to help us green a four bedroom, three bathroom house in Glenwood in Durban.
The house is home to a family consisting of two adults, two teenagers, a toddler and a baby.
On average they spend R1000 on electricity and water each a month. By 2012 that figure could double.
To start with, Andrea took electricity meter readings from a geyser that supplies hot water to an en suite shower, bathroom and kitchen.
He then set about reducing that average by replacing what he calls 'the low hanging fruit'.
Andrea: 'We call it the 'lower hanging fruits'... it is simple to do and it gives you a return, or guarantees you a return.'
Derek: 'To try and go completely off the grid is going to cost you hundreds of thousands of rands, which is beyond most of our means. But you can start small; a simple shower-head costing you a hundred rand could save you more that R1000 over a year.'
By just replacing shower-heads and tap nozzles, Andrea was able to reduce the geyser's electricity usage by 34%.
Jonas Barausse, Andrea's son, demonstrated how this was done.
Jonas Barausse (Energywise): 'What you have here is a pressure gauge and an optometer, that's going to show you your litreage per minute. This is not an energy saving shower-head, its a standard shower-head. In this instance you see that at 1.5 bars of pressure the shower is putting out 25 litres per minute. Now a 10-minute shower under this would be 250 litres of water.'
Both dad and the teenage son shower twice a day.
Assuming each shower takes 10 minutes, that's 1000 litres of water a day!
Jonas: 'It's safe to assume that about 60% of the water that you use in the shower is hot water, so if that is 1000 litres of water a day, you would be looking at 600 litres of hot water a day.'
By reducing the amount of hot water used, it's possible to save the amount of electricity it takes to heat up those extra litres.
Jonas demonstrated an energy saving shower-head that costs R101.
Jonas: 'What you see with this shower now is that it is 3 bars of pressure and we are putting out 8.3 litres of water a minute. That's a massive saving; that's well over 50%.'
Andrea and Jonas also installed three R35 water saving tap nozzles in the kitchen and bathrooms that reduced water usage from 34 litres per minute to 16 litres.
That's an average saving of 146 litres a day or around R1000 a year.
We then tackled the big energy guzzlers in any home.
Currently Eskom offer consumers a rebate to install solar geysers.
Andrea: 'That cost about 14... R15 000 installed and it's got a rebate of about R4 500.'
We installed a solar evacuated tube system. The evacuated tubes act like giant thermos, allowing 93% of the sun's radiation in, but only 3 to 5% out, allowing it to work in temperatures as low as -40°C.
Andrea: 'You have to harvest as much heat from the sun as possible, but you still have an electrical element. If the water is not hot enough, just boost it up to that 55 /60 degrees.'
In total the shower-head, tap nozzles and new solar geyser reduce the amount of electricity used to run the original electric geyser by up to 73% - a saving of R3600 a year.
The solar geyser had a 25 year life span and Andrea estimates that the family will pay off the solar geyser in just less than three years.
Derek: 'These solar tubes are not the only way to heat water efficiently. There is also the heat pump.'
We installed a heat pump to heat the water of a second, smaller 100 litre geyser found in the home's main en suite.
According to Jason Deane, whose company specialises in heat pumps, it works like a fridge in reverse.
Jason: 'If you put your hand at the back of your fridge, you would feel that it is hot. The reason why it's warm is because it has taken all that energy or that heat out of your vegetables, out of your cool drinks and rejected that out of the fridge.'
In comparison, a heat pump takes heat from outside, cycles it through a refrigerant to heat it up and then compresses it until it's piping hot.
This super-heated air is used to heat water in the geyser.
Jason: 'They heat your water to 60 degrees, using about a quarter of the power that your current electrical element is using.'
An added benefit is that the heat pump is plugged straight into your existing geyser.
The heat pump should, on average, save the family just under R900 a year.
Hooked up to a 250 litre geyser found in most homes, Jason says the R15 000 heat pump will save an average of R3000 a year and pay for itself within five years.
And that doesn't take into account the electricity tariff increases, which will speed up the rate of pay-back.
Jason: 'One of the only disadvantages [are] that you do require electricity to run the machine. So if you have a blackout you would not be able to heat your water.'
Derek: 'And there is one more thing to really blow your hair back; wind can take you right off the grid. Well, almost.'
Friends Eugene Wolff and Darren Smith began building wind turbines over a year ago.
As an electrician, Darren found his clients were increasingly asking him how they could get off the grid.
Eugene says he got involved because he fell in love with the technology.
Derek: 'Eugene, this is a sound you love?'
Eugene Wolff (Fusion Source): 'Well, every time I feel the wind blow and I don't have a turbine near me, I'm thinking, 'What a waste!''
Eugene and Darren installed a 300W wind turbine as a backup system for periods of load-shedding or when the power fails.
Eugene: 'With this unit we will get about three to five hours of lights, and possibly a TV, your decoder all running for about three to five hours.'
Wind turbines operate on a simple principle. The energy in the wind turns the propellers around a rotor. The rotor is connected to the main shaft, which spins a generator to create electricity.
The electricity is stored in batteries until needed.
Derek: 'And you are supplementing this with solar power?'
Eugene: 'Correct. We use solar panels in case you have days or weeks without wind.'
The unit installed in the house will set you back R26 000.
With a current saving of around R40 a month, it's going to take approximately 54 years before this turbine pays itself off.
But Eugene points out that, with the increase in the price of electricity, wind turbines will become more cost-effective.
The biggest turbine Eugene and Darren build is a 2kW turbine, which will save you as much as R6800 a year and last for up to 30 years.
Other options to boost your green status and save cash are:
- Eco kettles where you only boil the water you need.
- Detergent-free ceramic washing balls.
- And grey water systems that use bath water to irrigate gardens.
You can also use solar power to run your security system during load-shedding.
Carel Coetzee (XON): 'The security systems in this property would not be affected [by blackouts] and, when the owner comes home at night and presses the button, the gates is going to open and the security lights is going to light up. And we also are going to have the electric fence running without any power provided from the grid.'
Derek: 'The electric fence powered by solar?'
Carel: 'Yes, yes!'
Carel Coetzee owns a company that develops locally produced green technology. They also have a unique answer for people who are not connected to the grid, but need electricity.
This solar case charges during the day and provides power for up to five lights and a few extras.
Carel: 'So we can light this up and provide a study light, plus a cellphone charger and something like a radio for the once off payment of about R3000.'
In total the family will currently save on average per year:
In electricity:
- R900 from the heat pump and
- R3600 from the solar geaser
They will save in water:
- R1000 thanks to the shower-heads and tap nozzles.
That's a total R5 500 per year, or just under R460 a month.
According to Andrea, going completely off the grid by installing a large wind turbine, full solar and or other green technologies is going to set you back by at least half-a-million rand.
But it may be worth it in the long run.
Andrea: 'It's becoming more and more cost effective to take actions.'
Derek: 'So, you may want to start small or just go big straight away. The surprising thing is that going green can actually save you green backs in the long run and, as a bonus, you are helping to save the planet.'
Andrea: 'There is money to be saved; there is environment to be saved. It's a win-win, win-win, for everybody... for Eskom, for the country, for your own pocket, for the environment. Why not?'
IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER:While every attempt has been made to ensure this transcript or summary is accurate, Carte Blanche or its agents cannot be held liable for any claims arising out of inaccuracies caused by human error or electronic fault. This transcript was typed from a transcription recording unit and not from an original script, so due to the possibility of mishearing and the difficulty, in some cases, of identifying individual speakers, errors cannot be ruled out.
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