PV charge regulator company in South African JV

Abstract

Leading PV charge regulator company, Steca GmbH, located in Memmingen, Germany, has opened a joint venture company in South Africa to target South Africa’s rural electrification PV program and extend their PV activities on the world market. This comes, the company claims, after another record production of 93 000 charge regulators in the year 2002, making it world market leader of PV charge regulators. The joint venture is with a South African company called RED (Renewable Energy Developments) with their headquarters in Johannesburg. RED designs and manufactures intelligent prepayment meters and revenue collection software in South Africa which interface with STECA’s new charge regulator generation which will be launched in late summer 2003. STECA expects a new market section for prepayment charge regulators, which could reach in the next years more than 10% of the traditional world off grid market for PV systems. South Africa is the prepayment technology leader offering a large domestic market potential of more than 250 000 PV systems in five concession areas. Prepayment is the key technology to attract more financial investments for PV rural electrification. The German financial cooperation agency KFW just recently signed a co-funding agreement with the South African Government for another 27 000 solar home systems. STECA expects a larger strategic export initiative for renewable energies coming up from the German Government for several countries. In spite of further delays in the South African rural electrification PV program, STECA said it is confident about the future that with the right technology and the right partners, the institutional barriers will be lifted. This is a short news story only. Visit www.re-focus.net for the latest renewable energy news.