11 Dec 2016

Hukuntsi Sub-district Council Nationwide Electrification project engineer, Mr Onneile Mmereki has said solar mini plants will help the teaching staff living in some villages and settlements to improve their living conditions as energy is an important component in the education development process.

Mr Mmereki said in an interview with BOPA recently that the electrification project started around 2012, and its aim was to electrify or connect institutions and government facilities to the extended grid network and it was realised that it was costly to connect some villages and settlements which were far from the national grid, therefore solar energy was proposed as an alternative.

“The aim of the project is to improve life and education standards at settlements and remote areas, so the solar system was designed to cater for normal usage of domestic appliances in staff houses,’’ he said.

He noted that the ministry of education has funded these projects in four districts being Ghanzi, North West, Southern and Kgalagadi, and the scope of the project is to electrify primary schools and teachers’ staff houses.

He further noted that for Kgalagadi District Council (Inalegolo, Zutshwa, Ngwatle, Ncaang and Ukhwii villages) the project was awarded to Energy System Group Pty Ltd. “The project consists of building centralised solar power generation unit of 120KVA (Panel arrays and plant rooms which are housing the power bankers), distributing the power to classroom and staff houses, installing independent solar geysers and other electrification components in each school,’’ he said.

Mr Mmereki highlighted that the overall project progress is 40 per cent and the project is behind schedule as it was expected to have been commissioned some months back but because of some challenges which are encountered in the execution  the project has slightly delayed.ENDS