 Now this evening we're going to be talking about something I was actually saying to my guest that it's one of those things that I need, one of my properties actually has an issue in this particular department and I know so many of us, you know, want a solution to this because it also has a way of creeping up on you financially if it is not adequately addressed. We are looking at smart water solutions and how they affect property. We don't even look at what we mean by smart water solutions and of course what are some of the ways that you can go about to make sure that you're as efficient when it comes to all things water solutions in your property and help us get a better understanding of how we can be more efficient and certainly do a better job of this. I'm joined by Richard Feon who is CEO and founder at Power Optimal. Richard good evening and thank you so much for joining us on the show. Very good evening to you ma'am and thank you for hosting me and I hope that I can provide some useful insights for the audience this evening. I'm looking forward to our conversation Richard. I know one of the big things with our conversation I want to actually start with when we talk about smart water solutions what exactly are we talking about? Well we're talking about solutions that span the entire value chain of hot water and I think if I'd like to take a couple of steps back and talk about what motivated us to become involved in this particular sector together with our partner Electrolux and the primary motivation that started us on this smart hot water journey was environmental and the vision that we share with Electrolux globally is to be able to build a business that measures and manages a reduced carbon footprint generated from hot water and with that is the starting point and alongside Electrolux and their global aspirations for the environment and for their customers we've brought about a situation where we have a smart hot water system and a smart hot water system but definition is something that allows us to measure manage and reward so to say people that are involved in the utilization of hot water so that may or may not be an adequate description but let's take it from this angle if we look at hot water the energy cost to generate hot water is about 40 to 50 percent of the total household cost of energy and a smart hot water system allows us to reduce that consistently and significantly I hope that's a good definition for the audience and it certainly is I think when we like that you even point out Richard the cost of you know high water oftentimes whenever we speak to you know certain experts that we have on the show they'll tell us how how expensive our Giza usage typically tends to be I think it accounts for about 40 percent of your electrical bill comes from the Giza and so if you're able to find alternative ways of you know whether it's a Giza or even another you know device because we do know that there are other things that you can use instead of we'll say the classical Giza that gets connected to your electrical you know connection that still is able to provide you with water so the moment you have something like that you do find that people's electricity bill does actually significantly you know look different or lower than those of us who are still fully using our Giza and sometimes don't even switch it off I mean I know I can be very bad with you know switching it off manually and we have seen different innovations where there's the Giza trip that actually you know switches it on and off so that you don't have to remember because I know I tend to forget you know sometimes as as much as I want to before leaving the house switch it off or then switch it on when I come back it slips my mind and and I think I sometimes wonder you know what my electrical bill will look like if it was a way to to just be on top of that and I'm sure that's you know certainly something that people at home would want to get the better insight on I think you wanted to come in the Richard yes you know you say switching your Giza on and off to save money there is absolutely no benefit to doing that whatsoever when we do the physics and the calculations if you want to save money the first thing to do with any Giza a standard Giza a non-smart you know Giza is to throw a Giza blanket over it and that will give you some significant savings more savings than a human trying to manage it because we think we understand how these things work but sadly we don't and of course you know one of the key features of of the offering that we're bringing to the market the Elon smart water offering is solar connectivity can that's the ability to connect the smart Giza and you know the smart section of things to solar panels and solar PV panels generate electricity and if we generate electricity using the sun well we have a fixed cost to start to do that and beyond that we have very very small costs and we can do this at scale and we can do it it's become more and more cost effective over the years when we started our journey here the cost of solar panels and the cost of the energy that they deliver it was between seven and eight times what it is today and the cost of solar PV continues to fall at a very very high rate and the performance goes up it's a little bit like the personal computer when I first joined Apple in the mid eighties it cost you two years pay to buy a computer and you know now of course computers are well nowhere near in in many instances if we look at you know a certain part of society one month's pay and the other thing that I think is very important to consider here is we need to make energy accessible to all people and solar PV as a technology setting aside hot water for a moment is the vehicle that will do that the solar PV revolution has not yet started and you know one of the wonderful things is as as the adoption grows as happened with computers the costs will drop they'll fall and the difference of course with solar PV is that it will create lots and lots of jobs in Africa it will be one of the biggest job engines that we have so you know the inclusive transition to energy can also include and very much will include you know solar PV as part of that equation and the cost of solar PV generation or production when you buy it is a fixed cost and we and that fixes a particular cost per kilowatt hour and from there we all understand you know that escom will continue to increase prices year on year under normal conditions and under the current conditions we find escom in it's going to be way ahead of inflation so the payback just becomes really really really really worthwhile you know I often ask people the question why would you why would you hesitate to invest in being your own power station you know from a hot water point of view and when I put the argument to them they'll buy a car and lose lots of money and depreciation and get no return on it and and the residents to spend you know 20 20 odd thousand rand you know which is the cost of a full system to get a return on it of about 400 rand a month from day one they actually don't have an answer to that question and there are I think with the way things are developing in South Africa I think we're going to see the banks come forward and play a much larger role in making the funding available to make these things affordable in fact if we look at the saving that an average three bedroom house achieves by using solar energy to to heat its hot water in a managed fashion it's between four and five hundred rand a month and that pays for the system so we've reached that tipping point where I think consumers are starting to be very very aware of the fact that there's savings to be made and you know for a very small investment that can happen if you are just joining us this evening I'm in conversation with Richard Fearon who's a CEO and founder at Power Optima we're looking at smart water solutions and how they affect property you know Richard I of course at home taking your questions and comments do tag your friends and family in this conversation I also just want to find out from your home some of the water issues that you may have based in your respective properties and homes and how you went about facing them sometimes I mean sometimes even when there's a water leakage in your property it's not always easy to spot it and you know you could easily rig up a water bill that goes into the thousands of rands because you weren't able to spot what was happening I mean this actually once happened in one of the properties where there was a leak you were not aware of it and you know a water bill that would have typically been less than a thousand rands per month ended up going to over you know 15 thousand rands for that particular month because water was just continuously coming out and nobody was aware that that is happening so that's certainly something that we know we want to always be on top of I can see more of you checking in pulling across saying voting for solar installation to be affordable sandy stimage checking in there on our facebook page also saw that we had somebody new at check my fishing line also checking in tagging their friends we've got Bianca combs also checking in Shaqon Shaqon checking in on our facebook page of course do you keep the love coming send those green hearts and also share your water saving tips and if you've already started using certain smart water solutions or because I think many of us have certainly done that for for electricity or see the value but sometimes don't think about it when it also comes to smart water solutions and the importance of also doing that now Roger I actually want us to look at some of these structural and even foundational issues from water damage that we could find out when I was saying to you that this is one of those topics that I've had different kinds of water issues in different properties and so finding the various ways to even identify a potential water issue and a way to not only solve it but mitigate for it you know potentially happening in the future is something that is so important for me because I think you sometimes don't realize what is missing in your overall system in the house until you're faced with that particular crisis and have to deal with the after effects so what what what can be some of the damage that we could potentially see especially structural even foundational when it comes to it being damaged by water I think let's start it let's start again at the Giza end of things and you know the Giza is an appliance it's basically an appliance with which we don't have any relationship it sits in our roof it's up there and as long as it works it's fine and the only time we know that it really exists is when it either is cold or it leaks and it causes damage to our property and not just our our ceilings and our carpets you know it can it can go a lot further than that the Elon smart water platform is an IoT an internet of things platform behind the scenes and what this does is it allows us to look on a tank by tank basis you know a Giza by Giza basis on up to many millions of units and we can start we can see leaks before they become major leaks and that is a very very important aspect for everyone involved for the banks for the insurance companies for the consumers you know there's a massive amount of of damage that occurs from hot water leakage and hot water systems that rupture and and things that go wrong in the roof so managing that and managing that proactively and having pre alerts for that is a very very important feature that we enable in the Elon smart water system and that in itself if we look at insurance premiums that we pay on on householders cover between 50 and 70 percent of the householders premium is allocated to Giza related incidents and consequential losses and you know whether you're a tenant whether you're a landlord an earner property investor you know you don't want those things to go wrong and one of the things that we are able to now do with the system is to allow that to be pre alerted so the the customer will actually be told there's something wrong it'll go to their mobile phone it will also if there's a service provider involved alert the service provider so risk mitigation and and and total prevention of damage to property from hot water related you know unanticipated incidents is a very very tight point of focus for the solution that we deliver and that is Richard Feon who is the CEO and founder at Power Optimal wrapping up the Wednesday edition of the private property podcast with myself Osamantouma Kumalo well that's it from the team and I this evening we'll be back on your screens tomorrow evening at 7 p.m. until then hoping you're staying home and staying safe