Establishment of state of the art PV Manufacturing Plant in the Western Cape
Currently constructing a thin film PV manufacturing facility in TegnoPark which is expected to be running by the fourth quarter of 2013. This facility will also serve as centre of excellence (CoE) for PV research. Core technical personnel will also receive training before being deployed in commercial plants.
Production facility (based on 20 years R&D) will manufacture PV modules (typical size = 0.7m2 = 85W), which can be utilized in residential, commercial and utility scale PV projects. The replacement of standard electricity generated by coal-fired power stations with a clean PV solar electricity will result in massive reductions in our carbon footprint. For example, a 100MW solar park will reduce nearly 5 million tons of carbon emissions over 20 years.
On an average, 3 new job places are created per megawatt (MW) of production. A commercial facility of a 100MW (producing about 1000 000 PV modules per annum) will therefore create about 300 new job opportunities. In terms of recent statements from national government, PV projects (IPP) will contribute up to 900MW of power to the national grid in the next 3-5 years.