VALUABLE TRAINING FACILITY BECOMES SOLAR POWERED

CLIENT: Hein Wagner Academy

LOCATION: Worcester

THE CHALLENGE

The Hein Wagner Academy is an NPO which provides specialised training facilities for the blind and visually impaired. The Academy depends upon computers to deliver training to their students but the constant load-shedding outages meant that many hours of valuable training time were being lost. It’s no surprise to say that the situation was incredibly frustrating for all involved. The centre could not serve their clients effectively under these conditions (and the loss of training time also meant loss of money) so they approached us to help with a solution.

THE SOLUTION

We utilised all the available roof space and installed solar panels which are able to generate nearly all of their daytime power. We also paired the solar solution with an inverter and battery back-up system. We used the following key components in this design:

• 3 x 7.2 kW Hybrid Inverters.
• 6 x 5.2kWh Lithium batteries
• 1x 20kW Grid tied Inverter
• 40x 545W Solar Panels

THE RESULT

Now the Academy is able to fully function again and are able to serve their clients consistently and efficiently – uninterrupted by power cuts. Thanks to this solution the centre is almost completely self-sufficient during daylight hours and the battery back-up means they have up to 6.5 hours of power for all their key equipment too. They are no longer fully dependent on the grid and they’re saving a huge amount of money on their Eskom bills too.