SUPAHOT launches South Africa’s first smart geyser
There are more than seven million active electric water heaters (geysers) in South African households, and that number grows by around 90,000 each month. Geysers account for about 45% of the average home’s daily energy consumption, but they also result in insurance claims of more than R8,000 when things go wrong – most South African homeowners have woken up or arrived back home to find a wet floor or damaged ceiling due to a leaking or burst geyser.
Geyser manufacturer SUPAHOT is looking to the future of geysers in South Africa, and has launched the first locally made smart geyser, SUPAHOT CONNECT. For a small monthly fee, homeowners will have the ability to fully control their geysers via a mobile app. SUPAHOT CONNECT turns traditional ‘dumb’ geysers into smart geysers using Sensor Networks technology and existing links with local insurance providers.
SUPAHOT founder and CEO, Shaaz Moosa, says: “SUPAHOT CONNECT is a game changer for insurance companies, completely reimagining home risk while reducing claims, but it also improves the ultimate well being of South African homeowners, who can reduce their household energy footprints and collectively save millions of rands in household energy consumption.”
Utilising partnerships with some of the country’s largest insurance providers, SUPAHOT CONNECT creates a direct link to incident-management teams in the event of a geyser-related fault, such as a blown element or water leak. This significantly reduces the time to resolution of the problem, actioning repair-replace processes the moment faults are recognised.
Sensor Networks founder and CEO, Mark Allewell, says the monthly cost of the SUPAHOT CONNECT geyser is offset against the energy savings achieved just by having the smart geyser installed. Allewell highlights that with Electricity Minister Kgosientso Ramokgopa identifying geysers as a large energy consumer, the product has value on multiple levels: “Our customers are enjoying savings of more than 30% of their home geyser energy usage, and insurance companies are seeing a more than 90% reduction in consequential water damage claims. Smart geysers are a win-win for consumers, their insurance providers and South Africa as a whole.”
Moosa says the SUPAHOT CONNECT geyser will be available at traditional geyser sales outlets in early 2024, as well as through a direct-to-plumber model, to satisfy the needs of insurance providers that have signed up for early access.