In 2011 Dieter Ortmann of Germany built a bridge to South Africa and founded a branch office there. "With the goal of bringing training through the newly-founded Solar Academy and becoming a supplier to the installers we train there," says the founder and Managing Director of the Maxx Solar Energy Group, which also recruited the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Sonnenenergie to help with training. Now Ortmann is involved in a project that he is so proud of he has thrown his hat into the ring for the Innovation Installation Award sponsored by Hanwha Q CELLS and pv magazine.
He has arranged financing for a PV plant on the Dominican Grimley School; a school for the deaf attended by some 100 children. Ortmann thinks of the undertaking as an exemplary project that can act as a model for further PV installations. After all, even though many people are convinced of the benefits of solar energy, the money is often lacking.
His partners at the school are nuns, some of them more than 70 years old. "I found it fascinating that people of an advanced age have an appreciation for the role of renewables and energy independence," says Ortmann. "Be more independent" is his motto for the project. At the Grimley School, the motto applies both to energy security and with regard to his helping people help themselves.
PV rental as a financing solution
"Sure, there's plenty of sunshine; it is definitely worthwhile to go there," says Ortmann. "But the financing is often a problem. Ortmann and his team have to link up potential operators with investors and develop a good solution for both. The school is now renting the PV system.
The conditions are right. On the one hand, the location gets approximately twice as much solar radiation as in Germany. On the other hand, electricity costs are about half. Amortization for self-consumption systems therefore follows a similar track. Added to that is the aspect of self-sufficiency, he says, as the power supply is not as dependable as in Europe.
Maxx Solar implemented the project with a local installer. "All we're doing is helping people to do something for themselves, and we merely act in an advisory role," says Ortmann, explaining his motto. The rental model works much like similar schemes in Germany. The owners are from "our area," a tax adviser and a South African owner. The first thing is to show how this can work.
The school can purchase the system in 12 years for a low price, says Ortmann – about EUR 100 per kilowatt. This, by the way is often a sticking point. The rental payments cannot be too high, and the purchase price at the end of the rental phase has to be reasonable so that the tenant gets something out of the system. This is the case in the Dominican Grimley School project. The monthly rent is approximately 2,700 euros. At a 70 percent self-consumption rate, that is already below the cost the school would have paid for the electricity. But the system design is likely to generate a self-consumption rate closer to 100 percent.
That means that even in the rental phase, the school will see significant savings month after month – using 90 percent of the power it produces should save the school some EUR 800 a year according to the figures provided by Maxx Solar.
It is a 20 kW system producing 33,000 kWh; the school needs 144,000 kWh. "In ten years the system will have paid for itself," says Ortmann. The only thing lacking is an emergency power supply. He is currently exploring options for how to finance that.
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(Once you are confident you can correctly answer one of the four questions posed)
Candidate 1, maxx-Solar:
What does the school earn with the rented PV installation if the self consumtion rate is 90%?
(400, 800 or 1200 Euro)
Candidate 2, BIG:
How many containers are required to build an urban rigger?
(3, 6 or 9)
Candidate 3, Solartechnik Mitteldeutschland:
How much do the inhabitants of the 16 houses save thanks to the almost-autonomous mini smart grid?
(5% energy costs, 10% energy costs or 15% energy costs)
Candidate 4, Intellisol:
What percentage of the dealerships energy use is covered by the Intellisol PV installation?
(70%, 85% or 100%)
If you haven't yet voted to decide who should win the award, you still can do so here.
Voting is open until Friday evening, July 8.
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