At first glance, there is nothing out of the ordinary about the regional airport in George, a town of just 150,000 residents on South Africa’s south coast.
However, the small site is Africa’s first “green” airport to be powered by the sun.
The control tower, escalators, check-in desks, baggage carousels, restaurants and automated teller machines — every service depends on a small solar power station, located a few hundred meters away in a field of dandelions next to a runway.
Its 2,000 solar panels produce up to 750 kilowatts (kW) every day, easily surpassing the 400kW needed to run the airport.
The excess is fed back into the municipal power grid, and a computer screen in the terminal informs passengers: “Within this month [September], 274 households were supplied through this system with green electricity.”
For environmentally conscious travelers keen to reduce their carbon footprint, it is a welcome development.
“Planes have such a big carbon print,” 33-year-old passenger Brent Petersen said in George. “If we compensate, that’s cool.”
George Airport was originally built in apartheid-era South Africa in 1977 to make getting home easier for P.W. Botha, a government minister at the time and later president.
It now serves as a transit hub for shipments of homegrown flowers and oysters, as well as golfers visiting one of the region’s many courses. About 700,000 passengers pass through its doors each year.
The solar plant, launched in September last year, makes George the second solar-run airport in the world after Cochin International Airport in southern India.
Nestled between the Indian Ocean on one side and the majestic Outeniqua Mountains on the other, George was a surprising location for the first attempt at a solar-powered airport in South Africa.
The town’s weather is unpredictable: In the space of half an hour, the temperature can plummet by 10oC, the blue skies quickly replaced by a steady drizzle.
However, so far, so good; even on overcast days, the plant still produces some power.
At night or when necessary, the system automatically switches over to the traditional power grid.
“The thinking was if we put [the solar plant] in the worst unpredictable weather, it will absolutely work in any other airport in the country,” the airport’s maintenance director, Marclen Stallenberg, told reporters.
The environmental value of the ambitious project is already evident.
Since solar became the airport’s main source of power, the hub has reduced its carbon dioxide emissions by 1,229 tonnes — the equivalent of 103,934 liters of fuel.
The electricity bill has been cut by 40 percent in the space of a year, “which is a plus for me on the budget,” airport manager Brenda Voster said.
Voster said it would take another five to 10 years to pay off the initial 16 million rand (US$1.2 million) cost.
Meanwhile, regular power cuts, which in recent years have plagued Africa’s most developed economy, are a thing of the past, she added.
Heavily dependent on coal, which is the source of 90 percent of the country’s electricity, South Africa is looking to diversify its options to avoid power cuts.
Robyn Spence, who works at Dollar car rental at the airport, said they “had to replace quite a few computers” fried by electricity surges caused by power cuts last year — no longer an issue with the solar energy system.
However, not all the retailers at the airport are feeling the benefits yet.
Lelona Madlingozi, a kitchen manager at restaurant Illy in the main terminal, said they had two power cuts lasting about three hours each just a month earlier.
“We could not sell anything in the shop,” she said.
Restaurants, are not one of the essential services prioritized during power cuts, the airport said.
Expanding the use of renewable energy is a key focus for management firm, Airports Co South Africa, its president, Skhumbuzo Macozoma, said.
The company’s goal is to achieve “carbon neutrality,” or net zero carbon emissions, by 2030.
In a country with an estimated average of 8.5 hours of sunshine per day throughout the year, solar power’s untapped potential looks huge.
After the success in George, the airports in Kimberley — South Africa’s diamond capital — and Upington near the Namibian border have also gone green, with three other regional airports next in line.
George Airport now plans on increasing the capacity of the small power station by an extra 250kW and is to soon install batteries capable of conserving energy generated during the day for use at night.
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