This start-up wants to save you from Eskom

Wetility co-founder and CEO Vincent Maposa is a busy man. The alternative energy start-up is helping South African homeowners go solar, overcoming (or at least reducing the impact of) load shedding in the process, using financing models that don’t result in prohibitive upfront capital costs. Wetility – pronounced we-tility – is one of several South African start-ups in this space, including GoSolar and Vivica Group-owned Stage Zero – that help homeowners go partially (or even fully) off-grid while using clever financing models to amortise the cost of the installation over time. In this episode of TC|Daily, Maposa tells TechCentral’s Duncan McLeod about Wetility’s approach to financing, and why the company offers homeowners a range of options, including the ability to pay in full, or to use a subscription model, where they are charged monthly for the energy they use from the sun. Maposa tells McLeod why he started the business, his background as a management consultant with Deloitte and with Cummins, and how Wetility came to be backed by pay-television group MultiChoice. The company, which in the next few weeks is expected to unveil a series-A funding round to help it scale rapidly, talks about why Wetility decided to focus on the residential rather than the business market, how its offerings differ from other players in the market, and what consumers should know about going solar.