South Africa is getting deeper in the solar farm craze, beginning operations at its largest solar power project to date.
The Jasper Solar farm exists thanks to SolarReserve, a renewable energy company from Santa Monica, California, that had the project built near Kimberley in South Africa, according to Discovery News. The project started running at full capacity earlier this month.
The 96 MW farm will deliver 180,000 megawatt-hours of renewable electricity each year in Kimberley, and it is aimed at helping South Africa meet its goal of operating with18 gigawatts of renewable energy by 2030. The goal is one of several ways the country is trying to increase its use of clean energy while bringing down carbon emissions.
South Africa is expected to make great use of the Jasper Solar farm, as the country gets an average of 8.5 hours of sunshine per day, which is more than most other countries, Discovery News reported. London gets 3.8 hours, Rome gets 6.4 and New York gets 6.9.
Kimberley isn't the only city in Africa that is getting a solar farm, as Ghana is looking to install a 155-megawatt Nzema electric project in 2015, and Morocco plans on building several solar energy plants with the goal of producing 2,000 megawatts of electricity by 2020.
