P I CT URSE JU A NI TA SWART, SU PPL I ED
Shaun Fereira’s energy journey was a big deal which involved selling up in the city and starting a new life off the grid. This is his story...
SHAUN FEREIRA and his partner live in totally off the grid, for both power and water, on their land in the Free State
MY BIG ENERGY JOURNEY GREW UP and lived most of my life on Gauteng’s East Rand but always wanted to live away from people, be close to nature and try to be as self-sustaining and sufficient as possible. In April 2019, my partner Donna Porterfield and I sold our house in Benoni, as well as most of our furniture, and set off in our car with all we could fit in it. We travelled all over South Africa, camping at various caravan parks and looking for land in a quiet area with a river. After about three months, we found what we were looking for: 4 hectares of land between two private game farms with a 150m private river front. It is about 12km from a small town called Koppies in the Free State. We moved on to the land at the end of July 2019, living in 3 6
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our tent. The first job was to clear the bush – it was so thick you could not even see the river. We braaied most evenings and also had a small one-plate gas burner. Water was supplied by our neighbour who gravityfed water from his tank to our 500 litre tank. I bought a big dustbin and fitted it in the branches of the tree next to our campsite. We filled it using a ladder and then had a gas geyser which gave us hot water for our outdoor bath under the tree. For power we had 2 x 330W solar panels, a 12V 200ah gel battery, a 2500W inverter and a charge controller. This ran our 50 litre camp fridge, our television and lights. We started a small garden A P R I L
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and drilled a borehole for water. We also built a 6m high tank stand – and eventually started building our house. The building, which is 8m by 12m has an open-plan lounge and kitchen; two bedrooms and a bathroom which uses a composting toilet. The living area opens on to a 3m by 12m deck which overlooks the Renoster River. Just over a year after we arrived, our house was completed in August 2020, and we moved in. Today we are totally off the grid for both power and water. We upgraded our solar system, so now we have 9 x 330W solar panels, a 5kW inverter / charge controller, 2 x 24V Revov 10.2kWh lithium-ion batteries. All this powers a fridge-
