Solar energy is the way for this village in South Africa

While many talk about moving towards renewable energy sources, a rural Limpopo community is showing the way after embracing solar energy to escape load shedding and high electricity tariffs.

Each time the Matsila Community Development Farm was struck by a power outage, many of the 500 workforce were forced to down tools and go home, leading to an interruption in production and earnings.

The constant blackouts were caused either by load shedding or when Eskom cut off the supply owing to non-payment of the steep electricity bill.

“At some point we were owing Eskom around R300,000. But load shedding was also a major problem, it was hitting us really hard,” says Chief Livhuwani Matsila, who heads the Matsila royal family in Limpopo.