Date: Apr 08, 2019
Another huge fuel price hike, another pending electricity price jump. Just another day in sunny South Africa.
The trouble with energy prices is that when they go up, the price of everything else goes up, but when they go down, other prices don’t.
The energy situation in South Africa is unsustainable and it is not just the poor and working class who are suffering, the entire economy is feeling the pain. It is just a matter of time before it reaches the verge of collapse, unless we do something urgently.
Fortunately, there is hope on the horizon or, more accurately, in the sky.
In my previous article I wrote about breakthroughs in solar power technology. A few months ago, I wrote about electric cars and their amazing capabilities.
These two technologies are potentially world-changing and in a few years they will transform the world’s economies in unimaginable ways.
Consider an average household of the future: all the power needed to run a house will be generated via solar power. But this power will not come from the national grid, it will be generated by the house itself. The average home of the future will be off-grid. In fact, in many places this is already a reality.
American company Tesla has developed a range of roof tiles that look like plain old concrete roof tiles, but are highly efficient solar panels capable of generating electricity for domestic use.
Made with tempered glass, Tesla claims its solar roof tiles are more than three times stronger than standard roofing tiles. Its website says: “Glass solar tiles are so durable they are guaranteed for the lifetime of your house, or infinity, whichever comes first.”
Although domestic solar panels have been around for some time, the trouble with them, as with solar power in general, is that there isn’t a way to store the generated electricity.
