Industrialisation of the SADC region can be achieved through energy efficiency and solar thermal energy, as supported by the SOLTRAIN+ project funded by the Austrian Development Agency. This was highlighted by SOLTRAIN+ during a visit from representatives of the education, tourism, and industrial processing sectors, where heating and cooling are significant contributors worldwide.
SOLTRAIN+ set out to support and demonstrate that energy efficiency is needed in the drive for an Industrialized Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) as they met for the Industrial week under the theme "Promoting Innovation to unlock Opportunities for Sustainable Economic Growth and Development towards an Industrialized SADC" in Harare, Zimbabwe. The SACREEE team of Kudakwashe Ndhlukula and Asteria Markus, alongside Eng. Samson Mhlanga (National University of Science and Technology, NUST), Eng. Hilton Chongosho and colleagues (University of Zimbabwe), and Jenipher Chigerwe (Midlands State University (MSU), SOLTRAIN Gender Manager), set out to raise awareness of solar thermal through thermosyphon systems (direct and indirect) and pumped systems, from domestic water heating systems to the tourism sector, at the Harare International Conference Centre (HICC) in Harare.
The SOLTRAIN+ team was hosted under the industrial application section with a local firm, Felt Engineering. Inquiries about the application of solar thermal were received from a brewery in Uganda and Standard Chartered Bank, now FBC, which acknowledged that financing solar thermal systems as home improvement loans could be strongly considered. Other visitors included industrialists who had great interest in accelerating solar thermal uptake in the tourism and education sectors. Alongside exhibitions, the team managed to attend sessions by UNIDO on manpower development, which resonates with skills development in the training of installers, design engineers, and technicians for capacity building in the solar thermal industry.
