To get the panels onto the roof, the resort had to airlift them, each one weighing a ton onto the Palace’s roof, which is 70m at its highest point. Picture: Armand Hough/ Independent Newspapers.
Sun City, part of the listed Sun International group, has produced more than 2 million kWh and prevented 1 976 tons of CO2 from entering the atmosphere through renewable energy and has now added another 1 193 solar panels to buildings at the resort, this time at The Palace, and the Sun City hotel.
To get the panels onto the roof, the resort had to airlift them, each one weighing a ton onto the Palace’s roof, which is 70m at its highest point.
Brett Hoppé, General Manager of Sun City said that “conventional installation methods such as cranes would have inconvenienced our guests, so given the scale of the project, we decided that airlifting the equipment was the best and quickest solution.”
Sun City launched its R16 million grid-tied solar photovoltaic system, rated at a peak capacity of 1.4 megawatts, last October.
The plant has an expected lifespan of beyond 25 years when coupled with a well-planned preventative maintenance regime.
The investment will pay for itself within five years, driven by above-average annual electricity price escalations.
The installation at The Palace, part of phase three, comes as all available space on the roof of Sun Central has been covered by solar panels.
Sun City is phasing in the installation of solar as part of a broader environmental strategy that will, in the future, take the resort off the grid.
When this phase has been completed, demand from the resort on the national grid will drop by an estimated 2.3 MW.
Lesetla explains that the installation involved 204 flight sorties over three days.
The actual installation in the areas mentioned above is now in progress, and the first switch-on of two of this phase is estimated to take place around the end of July 2024, with the second one following soon afterwards.
Hoppé emphasised that the roll out of the panels forms part of a broader, phased environmental strategy that will, in the future, take the resort off the grid.
"We believe our ground-breaking project not only reduces our resort’s demand and consumption of energy, but that it will also meet Sun International’s broader environmental commitment.”
In Sun International’s latest Annual Report, Chairman Sam Sithole noted that loadshedding remained an issue, and its alternative energy strategy focused mostly on solar as well as battery storage.
Further solar projects are planned at the group’s Sibaya and Carnival City assets this year.
Senior operations engineer at Tsebo Energy Solutions, TM Lesetla, highlights the current progress on the shift to renewable energy.
"We are now in Phase 3 of our solar plant installation. This phase will add an additional 690 kWp, increasing our total to nearly 4,000 solar panels installed across the resort.”
Last October, Sun City’s sustainability manager, Lwazi Mswelanto, said that the resort would achieve Net Zero ahead of the United Nations’ target of 2050 as captured in its Sustainable Development Goals.
Sun City’s sustainability promise is based on people, planet and profits, said Hoppé. Since June last year, the resort has completed the first two phases of the project and have already realised a financial saving of approximately R3.1 million.
“Solar is beneficial to our broader community as the less power we draw from the grid the more is available to others,” said Hoppé.
Mswelanto explained that the resort’s “sustainability agenda is focused on not only shrinking our environmental footprint, but also on uplifting our surrounding communities”. Some 18 people from the communities surrounding the resort have been given jobs as a result of the solar initiative.
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