Energizing Mpumalanga’s Market Transformation
What is C4L’s Livelihood Security Unit for?
The short answer is - incubation of youth enterprise in the RE sector.
The LSU’s training role is definitely a support function to a higher mandate. It is at activity
and output level – graduating plumbers, solar technicians, entrepreneurs.
Youth are the ones who will be most affected by Global Warming. So they will be mobilized
to adapt lifestyles in order to mitigate the disaster of rapid climate change.
South Africa has both a Water Emergency and an Energy Crisis. Plumbers and Solar
Technicians respond to both these problems respectively.
C4L needs government support to go to scale - to create a Coop composed of youth members
in each municipality in the province, starting with 5 in Ehlanzeni, launched from one in
Mbombela.
This will not be a pyramid. It will grow like a honeycomb. It will be private-public
partnership. Coops are privately owned by the members. The services the deliver can be
linked to government roll out – water provision, solar water heaters (PT), solar lighting and
charging (PV) – all in “high density areas”.
Eskom needs to open doors for C4L, to various government linkages (Youth Fund, Public
Works, Energy & Environment, MEGA, REMT, DBSA, the respective SETAs, etc.)
C4L can be the unit to train youth from all municipalities from Piet Retief to Bushbuck Ridge
to Siyabuswa). C4L is the prime mover of APOLICO, the Africa Power and Light Coop, that
can spread “community enlightment” across the province.
Beyond the LSU, where are C4L and APOLICO going?
C4L is a nonprofit organization. APOLICO is a Coop that operates on a profit-making basis
but also with a social and environmental bottom line.
Through a model called “Micro-franchising”, the dream is to see Coops like APOLICO rising
in each and every municipality of Mpumalanga province. Not centrally owned by APOLICO
but inspired by it.
There is enough demand for 50 Plumbers and 100 Solar Technicians to generate their own
income in every municipality. There are 17 municipalities in the province’s 3 districts. Just
training all these is a big task, but C4L has made a start. It has already trained 64 in
Ehlanzeni district (Mbombela, Bushbuck Ridge and Nkomazi municipalities).
2550 youth (17 municipalities x 150 youth in each) can make an impression, not just in terms
of reducing electricity consumption by making “market transformation” happen (i.e. from
electricity to solar), but in terms of public opinion.
Two trained youth can install a full Cold & Hot Combo in 4 days. So in a year (250 days)
they can outfit 63 homes.
Thus 2550 youth can outfit over 80,000 homes in a year and almost 1 million homes in a
decade.
Mpumalanga’s population of 3.6 million dwells in roughly 1 million homes. There can be a
“market transformation” in a decade from electricity to solar. Domestic water heating offers
the fastest gains in terms of reducing consumption of electricity.
The national Development Plan calls for 5 million SWHs by the year 2030. Proportionally
that is 400,000 for Mpumalanga which has 8% of the country’s population. 2550 youth can
do more than that in less time. They could do 1 million homes in one decade.
APOLICO’s dream is that grass roofs will be transformed to roof sheets… that every home
will have access to potable water… that every home can have water heated by solar energy…
that lighting and charging can be enjoyed even where the homes are “off grid”.
The dream is that youth will own the process of “adaptation” to climate change… that 2550
youth across the province will generate good income for themselves and their families in the
process… that solar water heaters will become a status symbol that everyone will want… that
electricity consumption will fall significantly, saving families a pile of money in electricity
bills and lowering the carbon footprint.
New houses built will only install solar water heaters, not geysers… RDP houses will each be
fitted with a solar water heater… schools and clinics will install solar water heaters… every
community will have a Demo Home with both rainwater harvesting and solar water
heating…
In the decades to come, as the planet gets hotter and southern Africa’s rivers dry up, today’s
youth will see that their grandchildren take solar water heating for granted and think that
using electricity to heat water would be a waste of scarce resources.
C4L is thinking about long-term impact as well as the quick wins that are needed to keep its
RE initiative going and growing.