eskom price hike

**desA** · 25-Feb-10, 03:48 PM

For the Eskom rate hike, don't worry too much. Buy a small heat-pump & the reduction your monthly heating bill, will reduce your overall electricity bill substantially. In fact, if you are wise, the savings could possibly cover the 3x price increases.

I wonder when the hit rate from the Aids epidemic will be felt in SA? How is this funded?

**wynn** · 26-Feb-10, 12:07 PM

Suddenly a lot of alternative heat sources are looking atractive and as long as gas prices remain within reason cooking will become cheaper too.

Des give us a breakdown of how one of your units gets installed to an already existing system, diagram? and more or less cost of unit for average family?

**desA** · 26-Feb-10, 02:06 PM

Originally posted by wynn

Suddenly a lot of alternative heat sources are looking atractive and as long as gas prices remain within reason cooking will become cheaper too.

Des give us a breakdown of how one of your units gets installed to an already existing system, diagram? and more or less cost of unit for average family?

Wynn, I'll have clear numbers on this in a few weeks - if you can bear with this. I've been working on sourcing/developing products that will retrofit easily & for as low cost as possible for the SA consumer. I have no desire to rip the market, but to offer a fair solution, with a fair mark-up.

I have interest from some of the bigger players in the SA scene, so we'll have to see how this plays out. The volume looks to be there & these products can make water up to 60-65'C, with ease - at around 20-30% of the electrical consumption compared to electrical elements.

If you'd like to chat more per pm, please feel free to contact me.

If I may ask a question here - what would be a realistic amount that someone would be prepared to pay for a heating system that would bypass your current geyser heating element? There will be some upfront cost, but, I'm working this down as far as possible - aimed at the volume market.

Typical SA geysers are sized as follows:
50 L - 2 kW heater
100 L - 2 kW heater
150 L - 3 kW heater
200 L - 4 kW heater
250 L - 4 kW heater

**Dave A** · 27-Feb-10, 06:43 AM

If a heat pump saves that much electricity, you should probably approach Eskom for a subsidy. You should be able to get at least the installed cost of a ripple relay.

**desA** · 27-Feb-10, 02:29 PM

Thanks very much, Dave - that's wise advice.

The thing I've been focusing on is bringing affordible, reliable heat-pump tchnology to suit SA requirements. The items must be compact, simple to install, inexpensive to operate & requiring minimal maintenance. The products just have to be right in every aspect. This represents a fair technical & comercial challenge.

I've seen the incredible prices charged for solar systems & honestly think that many of these are incredibly over-the-top. To my mind, trying to sell something that is over-priced is not the answer to the current SA electrical dilemma. Nor is bringing in cheap Chinese equipment which is generally unreliable & inefficient.

The medium-term intention is to establish a high-volume facility in SA so that local skill can be employed, as well as to drive the volume margins.

I'm almost finished preparing a write-up on how heat-pumps work. I'll post a thread on this some time next week, so that we can debate the topic a lot more. I'd love to hear direct, frank comments on what people's thoughts are & make sure that the final products meet market expectations. I already have significant investment in this & want to see it done properly.

**wynn** · 01-Mar-10, 01:23 PM

Des
I have a 150L and a 100L unit at opposite ends of the house, will I be able to use the existing tanks to store the hot water produced?

would manufacturing insulated storage tanks be a possibility? or is that in your scheme already?

I prefer to keep questions 'on forum' because I believe others are also interested in my questions and your answers.

**desA** · 01-Mar-10, 01:55 PM

Originally posted by wynn

Des
I have a 150L and a 100L unit at opposite ends of the house, will I be able to use the existing tanks to store the hot water produced?

Yes, absolutely. The system will supply heated water to your existing geysers. There is an adapter that ties into the geysers. All very simple. The idea is to minimise your oncost by using existing geysers. The unit looks like a small outdoor aircon system. So if you have an aircon system, then the heat-pump will not look out-of-place. You can also use the cooler air off the heat-pump to cool the verandah, for instance. Heat-pumps give both hot water (primary product) & cool air (by-product).

Your existing geysers are probably using 2kW (100L) & 3kW (150L) electrical elements. This allows essentially a recovery time of around 3.5h per geyser. For heat-pumps, sized at say 5kW, you would recover temperature in exactly the same time, but at around 20-30% of the electrical cost.

One of the tricks with heat-pumps is to also stretch the heating time over a longer period of time (recovery time). The main issue is that most inernational recovery times are designed to be longer than this - to say suit a say 2.5kW heat-pump. So, with this in mind, you would save on original equipment cost (2.5kW versus 5kW) & now be using around 10-15% of your previous electrical heating cost.

With water-heating being around 46% of a typical SA suburban home, the potential savings would be around 39-41% of the current electrical bill. (Please double-check my calcs).

would manufacturing insulated storage tanks be a possibility? or is that in your scheme already?

You shouldn't need a new geyser, or hot-water storage tank. I have associates who already supply insulated geysers. They can also hook up to solar. So the system now becomes a combo heat-pump/solar/element. Mix & match as you need.

I prefer to keep questions 'on forum' because I believe others are also interested in my questions and your answers.

Ok, Wynn - that's fine with me.

**baruti_athol** · 01-Aug-10, 03:20 PM

Originally posted by Dave A

If a heat pump saves that much electricity, you should probably approach Eskom for a subsidy. You should be able to get at least the installed cost of a ripple relay.

i know a little bit of heat pump,which brand is good and how about the price?
hope someone could give me some points.my email is dominick.tau@gmail.com .thank

eskom price hike

eskom price hike

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment