Aries Solar Power, close to Kenhardt in the Northern Cape, prides itself on continuing to reduce environmental impact thanks to a number of biodiversity interventions.
ARIES Solar Power, close to Kenhardt in the Northern Cape, prides itself on continuing to reduce environmental impact thanks to a number of biodiversity interventions.
Solar PV plants, together with other renewable energy power technologies, are already acknowledged for producing no greenhouse gases during power generation, however, Aries Solar Power has implemented a number of interventions to further minimise the impact of this renewable energy power on the surrounding biodiversity and environment.
The environmental specialist at Aries Solar Power, Marli Schoeman, explained that they set ambitious biodiversity targets a number of years ago.
“We piloted a number of programmes and have been pleased with the results, which we can now report on,” said Schoeman.
Solar PV already has negligible impact on avifauna, with the added benefit of not using water during power production. However, solar plants traditionally wash their solar panels, which uses scarce water supplies in South Africa’s drought-prone areas.
Schoeman explained that after identifying this, Aries Solar Power decided to do away with panel washing and test how this affected power production.
“The results have been very pleasing. Everyone assumes we wash the panels regularly, but we have discovered that rainfall is sufficient to wash the panels. Approximately 180 000 litres of water is saved each year through this initiative. At Aries Solar Power we haven’t washed panels in the last three years,” said Schoeman.
Aries Solar Power currently has a water use licence in place, but plans on giving it up due to its new approach of managing water consumption.
The plant has come to the realisation that the municipal water supply is more than sufficient.
The plant only uses water for domestic office use now and harvests its rainwater, therefore requiring very small quantities of municipal water.
“We are also pleased to announce that the quality of the soil on the site has been improving over the years, thanks to the shade that the solar panels provide, and that bird life and other smaller creatures are happily co-existing on this solar farm,” added Schoeman with pride.
