The Letsatsi Solar Park is a 75- megawatt (MW) solar

photovoltaic power station A photovoltaic power station, also known as a solar park, solar farm, or solar power plant, is a large-scale grid-connected photovoltaic power system (PV system) designed for the supply of merchant power. They are different from most building- ...

in Bloemfontein, Free State, South Africa. The solar park uses 277,632 conventional,

multicrystalline silicon Polycrystalline silicon, or multicrystalline silicon, also called polysilicon, poly-Si, or mc-Si, is a high purity, polycrystalline form of silicon, used as a raw material by the solar photovoltaic and electronics industry. Polysilicon is produce ...

solar panel A solar cell panel, solar electric panel, photo-voltaic (PV) module, PV panel or solar panel is an assembly of photovoltaic solar cells mounted in a (usually rectangular) frame, and a neatly organised collection of PV panels is called a photo ...

s and went fully on line in May 2014. Its annual generation will be about 150

gigawatt-hours A kilowatt-hour (unit symbol: kW⋅h or kW h; commonly written as kWh) is a Units of measurement, unit of energy: one kilowatt of power for one hour. In terms of SI derived units with special names, it equals 3.6 Joule, megajoules (MJ). Kil ...

, enough to supply electricity for about 50,000 to 60,000 homes, while reducing the use of pollution-generating

fossil fuels A fossil fuel is a hydrocarbon-containing material formed naturally in the Earth's crust from the remains of dead plants and animals that is extracted and burned as a fuel. The main fossil fuels are coal, oil, and natural gas. Fossil fuels ...

. The Letsatsi Solar Park cost $487 million and is operated by the Letsatsi Solar Energy Ltd., which plans to operate the solar park for at least 20 years.

References

Photovoltaic power stations in South Africa Economy of the Free State (province) Bloemfontein {{Renewable-power-plant-stub

See also

References