Sod-turning for construction of solar farm

GEORGE NEWS - The beginning of the construction of a 1MWp solar farm in the George Industrial area was marked with a sod-turning last week by George Mayor Leon van Wyk, accompanied by Portfolio Councillor for Electrotechnical Services and Fleet Management Nosicelo Mbethe.

"This plant is the forerunner of our fleet of 10MW plants that we will be erecting in George over the next couple of years to provide electricity, not only to support our infrastructure that is owned by the municipality, but also to provide electricity into George's grid," said Van Wyk.

The aim is to ultimately be able to get off stages 1 and 2 of load-shedding by the end of 2024.

The renewable energy power that will be generated through this plant will be connected to the grid to reduce the municipal bulk purchases.

The 1MWp PV plant will consist of approximately 1 728 PV panels and 10 x 110kW inverters at a total cost of nearly R25m. The plant is expected to generate in the order of 1 780MWh per year.

At the sod-turning are, from left: Jandré van Zyl (VE Reticulation), Deon Esterhuysen (Electrotechnical Services), Mayor Leon van Wyk, Portfolio Councillor Nosicelo Mbethe, Danie Greeff (Electrotechnical Services) and Jacques van Zyl (Lyners Consulting Engineers).