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Africa's Largest Solar Power Project Completed!
Written by Ajay Pal Singh Chabba,
Solar Reserve ImageJasper Solar Energy Project in South Africa, also known as the Jasper PV Project, was declared complete in October 2014. The completion of this 96 MW solar project marked the finalisation of the last link in the 246 MW chain of grid-connected PV projects in the region, which includes the 96 MW Jasper project and 150 MW at sister solar farms Lesedi and Letsatsi.
This is Africa's largest solar farm, consisting of 325,480 photovoltaic modules. Located near Kimberley in South Africa, the project is pegged to deliver 180,000 megawatt-hours of electricity every year to over 80,000 homes.
Jasper has overtaken the neighbouring 75 MW Lesedi solar farm to become the largest photovoltaic solar facility on the African continent. The solar farms also lies adjacent to the upcoming 100 MW concentrated solar thermal power (CSP) project called Redstone, which is currently under construction.
A consortium formed by SolarReserve, the Kensani Group and Intikon Energy has worked together to develop three photovoltaic (PV) solar energy projects in South Africa’s Northern Cape all in the name of helping the country towards its 2030 target of achieving 18 GW of clean energy.
Apart from generating clean energy, this project also resulted in the generation of 800 jobs equivalent to about 1 million man hours of paid work during construction and has also significantly helped in increasing the positive economic impact on the area with 45 percent of the total project value being spent locally.
