The supply of electricity from the 50 MW Droogfontein solar project, in Kimberley, to the national grid is expected to start this week, as the commissioning of the plant gets under way.
Once commissioning started, a small amount of electricity generated by the plant would be supplied to State-owned power utility Eskom’s grid to check the equipment’s reliability.
“It’s very exciting to think that, during this period, the power that is exported to the Eskom grid will be consumed by Eskom customers in the Kimberley area,” commented Droogfontein Solar Power GM Mark Pickering.
If no problems were encountered and the reliability of the equipment was verified, the power from the inverter area would continue to flow to the Eskom grid.
Six of the plant’s 19 inverter areas, which each produce about 2.4 MW of peak power, would be commissioned by the end of this year, resulting in about 14.4 MW of peak power being supplied to Eskom prior to the December/January construction holiday.
The project, which forms part of the first window of government's Renewable Energy Independent Power Producer Procurement Programme, was expected to be fully operational before the planned commercial operation date in April 2014, stated Pickering.