SOLA starts 2020 by reaching 100 GWh target

SOLA has officially met its goal to generate over 100 000 000 kWh of clean energy by 2020 –  with a day to spare. 

The group set the target to reach 100 GWh of clean energy by 2020 as a goal when its C&I division started in 2014. And with just one day to spare, the target was met on 30 December 2019. 

100 000 000 kWh of clean energy in South Africa, where the carbon factor is quite high because of a coal-based electricity system, equates to saving around 92 590 tons of carbon emissions equivalents (CO2eq). This amount of CO2eq can be likened to taking 20 000 cars off the roads for a year, or avoiding 400 million litres of petrol, or powering 11 000 middle-class houses for a year, or planting 1.5 million trees, 10 years ago.

With wildfires currently raging across Australia, people dying of pollution-related causes in Mpumalanga, and our own Eskom struggling to keep the lights on, it is important to unpack the significance of this goal: we need to bolster the production of clean energy globally. And whilst 100 GWh is just a fraction of South Africa’s overall energy production, it is an important start in painting a better future for the country, and perhaps even the continent.