South Africa College High School (SACS) in Cape Town has made a commitment to clean energy by installing a solar system at its Rosedale Boarding House.
“SACS has become very aware of its carbon footprint, so a renewable energy option was important to us. In the past five years we have also seen huge increases in electricity tariffs so we needed to find a sustainable way of bringing those costs down,” explained Barry van Selm, Deputy Headmaster at SACS.
As part of the system, the school received a tracking tool that allows them to monitor the system in real time.
“Being able to track the system’s energy production is very interesting and allows us to see the results. Our first electrical bill has not arrived yet, but based on what we have seen from the monitoring tool, our use of electricity from the grid has been cut by about one third which amounts to a saving of around R75 000 at the current electricity tariffs.”
The solar system was installed by Energy Partners Home Solutions, part of the PSG group of companies. The team achieved some interesting results while still working within the parameters that were set by SACS as well as regulatory requirements.