Fuel stations adopt solar solutions in Africa

Solar photovoltaic (PV) installations are achieving electricity cost savings for gas stations across Namibia and South Africa.

With electricity costs up by 350% over the last decade and the regional grid under enormous pressure due to generation issues at Eskom, leading fuel retailers are adopting or encouraging their franchisees to adopt solar solutions.

In some fuel retail outlets, the solar output has covered in a couple of years 25 to 30% of the site’s total monthly electricity consumption, reports Esi Africa.

“Stations consume a lot of electricity, especially as many sites now include 24-hour retail stores as part of their service offerings. The effective cost of solar power is significantly cheaper than the equivalent cost of grid power, so franchises get to start saving on their electricity bills from day one”, says the managing director of SolarSaver, Tim Frankish.

SolarSaver has so far completed eight solar installations for service stations in Namibia – including Engen sites in Windhoek, Outapi and Oshikuku, two Puma Energy sites in Windhoek, a Shell station in Rehoboth and a Total station in Otavi. More installations are planned across the country in the coming months.

Solar PV solutions are specially practical for service stations as they usually have a big canopy space sitting in full sun.