Solar Market

Currently in South Africa today and indeed in countries on the African continent, the supply of electricity as well as the capacity to supply market needs by the Government parastatals has reached critical proportions. 

Evidence of this has been published and communicated in the media on a continuous basis.  Government parastatals through their communication to the general public have implored consumers in both the domestic and corporate markets to institute plans to reduce their usage of electricity.  e.g. turn off lights.

In addition to this, parastatals like Eskom are currently looking at implementing a cost increase of some 34% - 50% on electricity tariffs to the market place in order to fund their huge capital expenditures for the implementation and roll-out of additional generation plants.

Over the last couple of years, consumers in many countries, including South Africa, have experienced black-outs on a regular basis. Indeed, black-outs in many African countries have become the norm today and the rate of daily hours where black-outs occur are increasing at an alarming rate.

Such a situation obviously has a tremendous adverse impact on all businesses and domestic homes.  e.g. productivity and factory production etc.  In fact, as we all know, this situation has a huge detrimental effect on all economies and countries GDP.

The situation is worsened by the parastatals inability to supply electricity to many rural areas.  In many countries, rural areas have no electricity and thus no lighting at all. 

In developed urban areas the parastatals have adopted a strategy where developers and building contractors have to present ways and means of showing the parastatals (Eskom) what means they can implement in terms of reducing electricity usage before any infrastructural plans are passed.  This includes both the outside and indoor environments.

Against the above, the supply of solar lighting products as an alternative to the traditional electrical lighting products (both indoor and outdoor) is now being demanded by the market forces in all sectors of the economy. 

The challenge to manufactures/suppliers of these products has been to offer products that render the following benefits and criteria:-

• Affordable pricing.
• Products that are comparable to existing electrical lighting products in terms of brightness.
• The number of hours of constant brightness.
• Low maintenance.
• Easy to install
• Products that produce brightness in all types of weather conditions. e.g. sunny conditions and overcast rainy conditions.