Eskom and the City of Cape Town are preventing economic growth. 2012-07-16

Eskom and the Cities have asked people to reduce their electricity consumption. One way of doing this is by allowing private people to produce their own electricity and also by incentivising us to move our consumption outside peak time.

These incentives are available to big business, but not to private people.

Eskom and the Cities are still preventing people from producing their own electricity and feeding the grid. Eskom and the Cities are so fixated on earning revenue from electricity sales that they have forgotten that electricity is an enabler that gets the economy going.

Allowing private people and SMME's to remove themselves from the grid by implementing the Embedded Generation standard which allows for Time of Use Tariffs for small consumers would not only mean that private Embedded Generators would produce their own energy, but they would also put systems in place so that they use minimal energy at peak times.

Implementation of massive electricity cost savings. 2012-06-24

Save 35% of your electricity bill just by working together with others. Before you even install Photovoltaic or Solar Water Heating Systems.

All you need to do is:

Phase1: Buy In

1) Change the way you and your colleagues/members think. The most difficult part of this process. The rest is relatively simple, but I find this first step to be the most difficult.

Phase 2: Metering

2) Install special meters in each unit so that you can track their usage at least every 1 minute, with automatic uploads to your server;

3) Install a server in your Body Corporate which records their people's usage. The server could be put in the "cloud" which will make it more secure;

4) Ask the members not to change their behaviour during the first 3 months after installing the special meters. The members can view their electricity usage either online on the web or on their smart-phones, just to ensure that the meters are working;

5) Negotiate with the members to pay the Body Corporate instead of the Utility (or City);

6) Negotiate TIme of Use and better Tariffs with the Utility as now you are a big user;

7) Wait 3 months and then ask people to reduce their consumption and move from peak to off-peak. Note that you will use the 3 months history that you have plus the people's last year's monthly history to calculate their electricity usage for the other 9 months of the year;

8) Give rebates to your members and at the same time start building up a fund for future Repairs and Maintenance. This fund could actually be used in the future to pay for Photovoltaic Systems so that you can make your own electricity;

Phase 3: Energy Efficiency

9) All the above is Phase 1. Once you have done this you start Phase 2, which involves more dramatic Energy Efficiency interventions reducing your electricity demand even more;

Phase 4: Producing your own Electricity

10) And then once this is done you start Phase 3. Where you install Photovoltaic and other systems to produce your own electricity, but where you still buy off peak electricity from the Utility, usually between 10pm and 6am.

What do you think? Do you have any questions? How can I be of assistance?

SAAEA Gold Membership and Green Merlin Award to David Lipschitz and My Power Station Technology. 2012-06-16

The Five Winners Video with David Lipschitz. 6th June 2012

Part of a movie about Renewable Energy was made at my house on Monday. Here is a one minute clip from the movie.

We're at Grid Parity. Watch David Lipschitz of My Power Station discuss The Five Winners.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=saviH0t9OhY 

* The customer wins.

* The suppliers win.

* Eskom wins.

* The government and cities win.

* The environment wins.

With special thanks to Neil Webster and Adrian Charles of FixerFilm (http://www.fixerfilm.com/) for this magnificent quality photography and editing.

"It starts with us working together."

Ke nako,

David

Specialised Idiots! 2012-06-01

‎"Specialised Idiots": Analysing Germany's 22GW record, representing 14% of supply out of potential 140% of supply from roof top PV alone! No need for Fracking. Let's keep our Karoo as THE KAROO, not "THE FRACKED UP PLACE."

"The first major development is the fact that the renewable energy system beats the conventional energy system in terms of prices already. This is not that obvious to many people because the common benchmarks used in the media are biased against renewable energy sources. This bias is usually showcased by so-called 'energy analysts / experts' on TV, in articles, and in books. Their typical approach is to single out one renewable energy technology, put it into the power plant position of the conventional centralized energy system, and come to the conclusion that it’s not economical (for the power plant operator) to use renewables.

"So-called experts using this kind of faulty benchmark can have only two reasons:

"The 'experts' are actually what people call 'Fachidioten' in German, SPECIALIZED IDOTS. Highly knowledgable people who fail to understand reality because they view the world through a prism of outdated paradigms. (Best case.)

"The 'experts' have direct or indirect ties with the conventional energy industry, in which case they use their reputation to spread anti-renewable disinformation. (Worst case.)

"Either way, these so-called 'experts' disqualify themselves by failing to judge fundamentally different systems with the fitting benchmarks.

For everyone remotely familiar with renewable energy systems and without links to the conventional energy industry, it is quite obvious that such benchmarks are bullshit. Renewable energy systems operate in a decentralized fashion, close to consumers / communities. They gain efficiency by combining several technologies to reach 100% supply and by utilizing synergy effects like providing energy in forms of power and heat at the same time, locally.

"The obvious truth is that local wind power, biomass, and even solar energy can deliver energy to the citizens and industries of region cheaper than what the power grid delivers by burning lignite or uranium in a multi-GW power station hundreds of miles away. Today, even electricity from rooftop PV solar systems can beat the conventional energy system when looking at a conservatively realistic 15-20 year cost calculation, here in cloudy Germany."

Source: Clean Technica (http://s.tt/1d6fP

The Electricity Industry needs Deregulation. 2012-05-09

South Africa needs dramatic electricity growth to support a fast growing and clean GDP growth.

In my comments on the ANC's NPC 20 year strategy for South Africa, I suggest that deregulation and reducing bureaucracy is at the heart of creating an enabling environment for Electricity Growth in South Africa. This is supported byhttp://www.engineeringnews.co.za/article/global-solar-power-capacity-set-to-jump-2012-05-08

You can find my National Planning Commission NPC comments here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1B5lzSGI7BbuBB_u7a9YKHCFlj01M_h51A6RrLha18K4/edit

"The growth will depend on the support of politicians. It's not only about money, it's also about reducing bureaucracy," EPIA's (European Photovoltaic Industry Association) Secretary General Reinhold Buttgereit told Reuters.

David Lipschitz comments on the NPC Strategic Plan for South Africa. 2012-05-01

I have completed my comments on the South African National Planning Commission's strategy document for South Africa for the next 20 years. You can find it on ISSUU.

The NPC document is 444 pages and my document is 42 pages. My document includes a sentence or paragraph from the original document plus my comments. I look forward to any feedback you may have. My document ends with a summary of what I think needs to be done.

http://issuu.com/davidlipschitz/docs/npc_plan_2030_david_lipschitz_comments_final