From the start the rollout of solar water heaters in SA has been shambolic. The project was launched by Eskom in 2008 with a conditional grant to install 1-million heaters. Yet to date just 400,000 have been installed and they have been beset with problems.

A review of energy portfolio committee minutes since 2008 reveals a catalogue of issues with those that have been installed. About 10% of installed heaters are said to be unsuitable for the SA climate, and thousands were installed incorrectly due to inadequately skilled installers and a lack of monitoring and oversight from Eskom. Due to these failures, many recipients are said to have resorted to conventional electricity to heat water.

In positively Orwellian language these problems presented, according to then energy minister Tina Joemat-Pettersson in 2016, an “ideal opportunity” as they served “as an incubator for suitably skilled and experienced [solar water-heater] installers”. In incompetence we find our salvation. How many millions have already been spent fixing broken solar water heaters is unknown.

But it’s not just poor installations. The failure of the solar water-heater programme reveals a lack of thinking about the impact such systems will have. Evidence before the energy portfolio committee would appear to indicate that Eskom resisted the installation of solar water because of the impact it would have on its revenue.

Similarly, evidence before the committee often revealed that municipalities have consistently resisted the installation of solar water heaters because of the impact on their respective revenues from electricity sales. In addition, some municipalities were targeted for the programme though many supposed beneficiary homes did not have water supplies. Thus, the municipalities in question were not ready to receive solar water heaters.

Meaningless jargon

It seems incredible that these problems and the subsequent delays were not predicted given that municipalities rely so heavily on revenue from electricity sales.

In Mantashe’s response to the DA’s recent question regarding the delays, he stated: “The prolonged period was attributable to the participating municipalities’ delay in concluding the framework agreements with the department in accordance with the Intergovernmental Framework Act, owing to the project being implemented across the different spheres of government ... ensuring that governance structures are in place before the commencement of the programme will ultimately enable the level of accountability required from each sphere and or party”.

Apart from not answering why there have been delays, preferring meaningless jargon instead, the minister implies, as per one of his predecessors, that in incompetence we find our salvation.

The solar water-heating programme was shunted from Eskom to the then department of energy in May 2015. It has since been passed to the Central Energy Fund (CEF). ANC minerals & energy portfolio committee member Mikateko Mahlaule quipped in October 2019 that it seemed “every problem the [department of energy] faced was given to the CEF to attend to”.