When farmers were still tilling the land, electricity in the South African Province of North Cape was still a novelty and electricity from sunlight was unthinkable. But there is an enormous 22-MW solar power plant. This project, as well as a second 11-MW park nearby was conceived by Tenesol South Africa, a subsidiary of Sunpower. In March both PV parks went into operation.
The French company decided on the KACO new energy inverters in order to supply power tothe grid from 138,000 Tenesol type TE 240 modules mounted on uniaxial trackers. A total of 900 Powador 39.0 TL3 units ensure maximum harvesting of the sun in both utility plants which are part of the South African Government‘s Independent Power Producers Procurement Program.
The areas surrounding both plants do not really correspond to the pictures of the South African coastline that one knows from travel brochures. Here, further inland it is hot, much drier and therefore very dusty that’s no picnic for people, cattle or inverters. Whereas the former know how to help themselves with water or Cape wine, a Powador must make do with dry technology: specially-tuned software from the research and development department together with special filters from ebm-pabst, a long-standing partner of the Neckarsulm PV Company in matters relating to cooling. After accompanying the technical commissioning, KACO new energy South Africa will also be carrying out “Operations and Maintenance” to ensure full power in the new energy era at the Cape.