Cape Town - A milestone was reached last week with the opening of Africa’s first all-female workforce solar panel manufacturer in Ndabeni, Cape Town.
The R26 million plant has the ability to produce approximately 20 000 solar panels a month, which will be targeted at low-income households in sub-Saharan Africa.
The facility was launched by EnerG-Africa, an African company tackling the challenges of climate change through research, development and the manufacturing of clean energy products.
The company’s intention with this new facility is to focus on making smaller solar panels to serve low-income households across Sub-Saharan Africa.
Run by an all-female team, the plant, with a maximum capacity of 15MW per annum, has created 53 jobs and will operate 24 hours a day, five days a week.
Ener-G-Africa CEO Andre Moolman said that because factory workers in all sectors were predominantly men he wanted to give this employment opportunity to women from previously disadvantaged communities.
Economic Growth Mayco member James Vos, who officiated at the opening of the plant, said: “With an increased demand for solar panels, we can create job opportunities for the millions of currently unemployed South Africans. One report showed that the solar PV industry alone could create up to 30 000 jobs a year.”
Moolman added: “It is the first and only small solar panel plant in the world certified by TUV Rheinland, which means that some of Africa’s poorest communities will have access to solar with the highest quality certification available.”
Rene Salmon, plant manager at Ener-G-Africa’s Cape Town facility, explained that small panels were generally more time consuming and difficult to make than larger panels and, as a result, they were more expensive per watt to make than a larger panel.
“However, high quality and low price are our priorities for a customer base that usually only has access to high-price, low-quality panels,” Salmon said.
The 20W panels will sell for R314 each.
Vos explained that the City was pushing ahead with projects like these that seized energy supply opportunities to create a more economically sustainable future.
Wesgro’s CEO Wrenelle Stander added that now was the time for renewable manufacturing as there was a growing appetite to invest in renewables amid the energy crunch with multi-year investment opportunities arising, she said Cape Town and the Western Cape were ready to capitalise on this.
