Listen to the latest news on the radio. Recharge the smartphone battery. Blow dry your hair in the morning. The ability to do these and a long list of other daily activities which form an integral part of our everyday lives would not have been possible if it were not for electricity.
After moving to a new farm in the South African mountains the farmers, Jaco and Karin, did not want to give up any of the amenities of modern day living. They are part of a new highly educated and informed generation of farmers who aspires to combine their modern lifestyle with the daily life and work on a typical farm. This lifestyle could only be possible with sufficient provisioning of electricity. However, their farm was not connected to the local municipality’s power grid.
Being conscious of global warming and the effect it has on agriculture they decided to opt for solar energy to supply them with the required energy for their farming operations. A combination of two single axis DEGERtracker S60H (total output: 13.2 kWh) with SMA’s AC mini-grid technology, proved to be the perfect solution. The system generated an average of 100 kWh electricity per day, due to the high solar radiation in South Africa. The surplus power which is generated by the DEGERtracker S60H will be stored in an 80 kWh battery bank storage. Because of the battery management an uninterruptible power supply can be ensured even in low-yielding hours and during the night.
The high yield of solar energy made it possible for them to supply their farm operations with the energy required to continue their daily living without having to sacrifice comfort as well as the freedom to function independent of the local electricity provider.
