South Africans looking to reduce their electricity consumption on water heating can buy a geyser with an Integrated Heat Pump and start seeing a return on their investment in a year and a half.
Heat pump technology allows for heating and cooling air or water with substantially less power consumption. A conventional 200ℓ electric geyser with a 3.5kW element could consume around 10.5kWh per day when heating water from ambient temperatures to 60°C. According to Power4Less, the technology used in this particular model was developed by a South African team. The geyser is now being mass-produced in China and Japan.MyBroadband calculated how long it would take to pay off the initial cost of the geyser and start seeing a return on investment on an IHP geyser.
For those who cannot, Nedbank offers a financing offer with a monthly premium of R880 and installation included. If you stuck with the same electric geyser, you would have paid R36,873 for electricity, not accounting for annual increases. That is just R1,121.76 less than when buying the geyser with interest on top.