The power station near Grootfontein will have a total capacity of 5 MW and is scheduled to commence operations in June 2016.

The systems, which track the position of the sun on a horizontal basis, will be equipped with 700 First Solar thin-film modules. The IdeemaTec tracker technology has been optimised even further and now requires only 16 foundations on a 120 m length.

The power station, which was developed by HopSol Africa, is IdeemaTec’s third project in Namibia. The safeTrack Horizon is expected to generate a 23% higher solar yield than systems with fixed mountings. The forecast 14,000 megawatt hours of solar power generated per year will be fed into the grid of the state power supply company NamPower, resulting in a long-term reduction of Namibia’s dependency on electricity imports.