Solar Campaign - Keep the Power on at HERD

We have made great strides with our solar campaign and are happy to share feedback with you.

The solar system has been fully operation  for the last couple of months, with the days being a little shorter during our winter months, we were still able to harvest a fair amount of energy from the sun.

Currently, we have around 7 to 8 hours a day of maximum energy harvest, enabling us to cut our grid electricity usage by around 40% – 50% during these times. The maximum harvest is between 09:00 in the morning and 12:00 in the afternoon.

We are in the process of optimising battery use during the peak times and this process will take another couple of months for us to properly gauge the usage trend. Once this trend is set, we will be able to use majority battery and solar back up during the day as well as batteries during the peak usage times in the evening.

There has been regular maintenance on the system in the sense of cleaning the actual panels, the winter months being our dry months the panels collect a fair amount of dust and need to be thoroughly cleaned to ensure optimal energy harvest from the sun.

By constantly monitoring the system and making small adjustments here and there, we can maximise the total usage of the sun’s energy.

But one also has to start taking into account that the way electricity is used needs to be adjusted. What I mean by this is that it is beneficial to not start using big electrical equipment early in the morning, thus using grid power, but rather start later during the day and use the energy generated by the system.

Thank you for providing light and power to all at HERD.

Warm wishes,

The HERD Team