South Africa’s finance minister Pravin Gordhan announced that the government would allocate about $625 million for a solar water heater (SWH) campaign. The country hopes to have one million installations by the end of 2014, with about 160,000 installed to date under the state-owned utility’s rebate program.
The Sustainable Energy Society of Southern Africa (Sessa) acting-CEO Theo Covary said: “Sessa believes that the one million installations are more likely to occur if the program is built on a sound business plan and does not just focus on the monetary value of the rebate and the payment thereof. Key issues include greater consultation with industry, awareness campaigns, funding for training initiatives and above a well thought out strategy which is made public so that the business sector can respond.”
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