The Cheetahs Have Gone Solar

On November 9th, CCF joined the effort in reducing carbon emissions by powering its facilities using solar power, thanks so The Turkish Cooperation and Coordination Agency (TIKA) and Emanuel J. Friedman Philanthropies who funded both the solar panels and the installation. Namibian renewable energy company SolTec c.c. has completed the installation of a 75 kw solar array on the Visitor Centre roof. There are now 252 solar panel making up an area of 455 square meters to harvest the suns energy.

The photovoltaic power system provides electricity sufficient to operate CCF’s main campus and simultaneously charge a battery system for use in the night. Previously, CCF used a diesel genset that had to be run 17 hours a day in order to power operations. Genset operation still occurs so that batteries can be charged when the sun is not intense enough. However, operation of the diesel generator has been reduced to 7 hours per day.

Moving forward CCF hopes to completely eliminate genset operation. To do this, more solar panels and the associated storage batteries and control equipment are needed.