Sustainable Energy Society Southern Africa - Solar System for Luxury Sandton Hotel

The year 2009 was unprecedented in the history of renewable energy, despite the headwinds posed by the global financial crisis, lower oil prices, and slow progress with climate policy.

Indeed, as other economic sectors declined around the world, existing renewable capacity continued to grow at rates close to those in previous years, including grid-connected solar PV (53 %), wind power (32 %), solar hot water/heating (21 %), geothermal power (4 %), and hydropower (3 %). Annual production of ethanol and biodiesel increased 10 % and 9 %, respectively, despite layoffs and ethanol plant closures in the United States and Brazil. Download the report here.

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Solar System for Luxury Sandton Hotel

Wednesday, 14 April 2010 13:26

The penthouse suite at the Michelangelo Hotel, affords one a panoramic view across the rooftops of Sandton’s Central Business District, where upon closer inspection, you will discover that one rooftop in particular stands out noticeably from the rest.

Recently, Israeli ambassador to South Africa Dov Sergev-Steinberg and Public Enterprises Deputy Minister Enoch Godongwana inaugurated a 117-flat-panel-collector solar water heating installation atop the Da Vinci hotel, in Sandton. The company responsible for the solar installation is Kayema Energy Solutions, and the Kayema international solar experts worked together with Legacy’s architects and design engineers to implement the solution.

The solar water heating system can preheat 30 000 litres of water before it enters the hotel’s electrical heating system, and this is expected to reduce the electricity consumption by about 60%. Kayema also introduced a remote monitoring system, which monitors flow rates, temperatures and water pressure and will allow an instantaneous view of the system’s efficiency and performance from any computer desktop at any time.

The installation consists of 117 2-kWh flat panel collectors and it is estimated that 500 000 kWh/y of electricity will be saved, while some 210 t of carbon dioxide emissions will be mitigated. The return on investment is expected between seven and ten years.

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