COMMERCIAL SOLAR SOLUTIONS

UTILITY SCALE SOLAR FARMS

Large scale (Megawatt size) solar farms that interconnect with local, micro, municipal &/or the national grids. Such farms can supply power either to one large scale user like factories, industries or mines or multiple small scale users like municipal customers, communities, security estates, office blocks/parks or office parks.

This power can either be used for:

• Self-consumption: Used on the site where it is produced.

• Wheeling onto the local grid: Power is injected onto the local municipal grid for example where it is distributed to users on that particular grid. Excess power can be wheeled onto the national grid.

• Wheeling onto the national grid: This power is either sold to ZESA or other power consumers using the national grid to distribute the power.

• Banked: Power is generated and wheeled on the grid where it is used by other users. The banked units/credits can then be used at a stage when the solar farm is not producing power.

• Stored: Grid-scale storage solutions like lithium batteries can be implemented to allow for smoothing out of the delivery curve, transition to backup gen-sets, power storage or peak shaving to reduce maximum demand charges.

SOLAR WATER PUMPS

Solar water pumps are provided primarily to farming and residential clients. The main benefit is that these can be run off-grid, without batteries, grid power or generator and can thus be located nearly anywhere.

The pumps run directly from solar panels but AC boxes are available to allow for running it on grid-power or using a gen-set.

If water and power can be supplied with solar, true off-grid living becomes a feasible reality and makes the lives of far flung communities easier and less hardy.

Some of our customers include municipalities and eco estates that are putting in solar pumps to provide water to communities where piping in water through new infrastructure would be prohibitively expensive.

This technology also allows farmers to farm on arid and/or fringe lands more economically. There is a lot of access to land, but without water these lands cannot be used to make a living by both small and large scale farmers. Livestock & game farmers can also now afford to keep game on camp by providing water close to grazing.

SOLAR GEYSERS AND HEAT COLLECTORS

Heat collector panels can be retrofitted on existing geysers to minimize replacement cost but still generate hot water for both residential and commercial customers.

Solar tube geysers come in high and low pressure and can either be complete units (with tank, stand & tubes) or retrofit units (with manifold, stand & tubes). High pressure can take up to 6 bar pressure and low pressure up to 1 bar pressure.

Warm water is always available by utilizing a grid, gas or generator backup and a timer or heat sensing unit like a geyser wise or Bosch gas kit.

A typical geyser with a 3kW element can use over 4300 units of electricity (more that R7000) per year. This makes the payback on a system like this as short as 2 to 3 years.

In commercial installations a large volume storage tank is utilized with pumps continually circulating the warm water through the system to ensure that water wastage is minimized by having warm water available the moment the tap is opened. Heat losses are minimized by insulating the tanks and piping as far as possible.

These heat collector panels can also be used to heat pools, spa pools and Jacuzzis.

COMMERCIAL SOLAR

Commercial solar systems are solar systems used in Corporate & Industrial (C&I) markets on office blocks, shopping centers, factories, mines, commercial farms, hotels, lodges, Security Estates, etc.

The most widely used systems are grid-tied, self-consumption systems due to the energy production curve of the solar plant being comparable to the day usage curve in the average building.

Hybrid systems using a combination of solar, batteries, gen-sets and/or wind turbines are also available. Hybrid systems allow for off-grid micro-grids to be built in remote locations like mining compounds, military bases and isolated communities where grid access is difficult or expensive.

Community solar systems are large scale systems that service whole communities like golf estates, security estates, retirement villages, etc. These can either be installed as one system or dispersed on roof, carports or ground mount installations. The dispersed system works like one big power plant.

Commercial solar systems can be installed on rooftops (single or dispersed), carport, parking garages or ground-mount locations.

A full energy audit and feasibility analysis is conducted by our engineers before the system is installed to optimized the design and minimize installation costs. The grid/ gen-set provides any additional power requirements.

Pump-It Africa does turnkey installations that includes: design, sizing, engineering, financing arrangements, component supply, electrical reticulation, installations, commissioning, management & Maintenance.

We are a full wrap EPC (Engineering, Procurement & Construction) company. As well as an IPP (Independent Power Producer).