Rene Salmon, an ex-SANDF captain, leads an all-woman solar plant in Ndabeni and trains other women to build solar panels.
Growing up on the Cape Flats as the oldest of five siblings, with three of them being boys, Rene Salmon never saw any big differences between her and her brothers. Being the oldest, her dad usually taught her stuff first, and then she had to show her siblings.
“I used to play car games and build treehouses with my brothers, even though there weren’t any trees in Mitchells Plain,” Salmon laughs. “If they could do it, so could I.”
Nowadays, Salmon’s the boss at a solar panel factory in Ndabeni, Cape Town. Her job involves training other women in making solar panels and proving that if she can handle a soldering iron, they can too.
A groundbreaking all-woman solar panel factory
Ener-G-Africa’s (EGA) solar panel factory is a bit of a trailblazer. It’s the only small solar panel factory in the world that’s certified by TUV Rheinland, a fancy German inspection authority. This 800 square meter plant churns out 20W panels, which sell for around R300 each and find their way to South Africa, Malawi, Angola, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, and a bunch of other African countries. What’s more, the entire operation is run and staffed by women.
In 2022, EGA went even bigger by opening a 15MW per year solar panel assembly plant at their Cape Town site, only the second one in sub-Saharan Africa. It officially kicked off in early 2023, producing solar panels for fancy biomass cooking stoves, as well as for regular use in Africa and overseas.
The idea for this all-woman factory came from EGA CEO André Moolman, who used to be Salmon’s boss back when she was in the South African National Defence Force (SANDF). According to Salmon, she was one of 15 women out of 40 hopefuls during their tough SANDF training. But she topped the class, beating both the guys and the gals. Salmon climbed the ranks to become a captain, and nearly two decades later, Moolman reached out to her to run the all-woman solar panel plant.
'You can't say you can't, unless you try'
“I thought he was joking,” she chuckles. “I told him I’d never worked with electronics or in a factory.” But Moolman convinced Salmon and five other women from their training days to give it a shot. “Honestly, I was scared,” Salmon admits. “But my time as a captain made me tougher and taught me that you can’t say you can’t unless you’ve given it a shot. So, I tried.”
Today, these six women form the core of the Cape Town factory’s Solar Department, where they train newbies. EGA’s engineers train the core group, who then become supervisors, machine operators, quality checkers, and more. Once they’ve mastered their skills, they pass them on to other women, either recruited internally or as casual hires through CVs. “We look for women who are eager to learn, as the work is physically demanding and requires attention to detail,” Salmon adds.
Empowering women and fostering inclusivity
EGA isn’t just about making top-notch, affordable, clean energy products. They’re also on a mission to improve women’s lives in Africa. This includes not only teaching skills at the Cape Town solar factory but also making energy-efficient biomass cooking stoves. These stoves, mostly used by women, have been distributed to four million households across Africa.
According to Salmon, the Cape Town factory has 11 permanent employees, with two shifts of 12 casual workers. Newbies get a full day of training during recruitment and start as casuals under close supervision. In most cases, they can work on their own after just two weeks, but they keep getting training and updates. “There’s always room to get better, and the energy sector is a dynamic field,” Salmon notes.
Promoting gender equality
Looking back, Salmon and her team have come a long way, especially when she compares their first 20W panel to what they make now.
“I could list a thousand things that were wrong with that first panel,” she laughs. “It took the six of us three hours to make it by hand. It was the ugliest thing, with uneven spacing, fingerprints, and tracks all over it. But it did generate electricity.” Nowadays, Salmon says one person can make a 20W panel in just three minutes with a machine from start to finish.
Salmon is a firm believer that women can do anything, and she’s always preaching “the gender equality gospel” to her team. She encourages them to try new things and learn from them, seeing that as true empowerment.
“Much of what I do at EGA draws from my experience in the military,” Salmon explains. “Solar panel tech was completely new to me; I learned as I went, and I’m still learning. We have our battle scars from soldering irons and cuts from sharp aluminium frames, but we’ve all learned a ton from this experience.”
