Paarl warehouse moves off national electricity grid

As part of its ‘green’ philosophy, IMPERIAL Logistics is busy switching its national logistics hub, including a new office building for 120 people, away from the national electricity grid. When the company moves to its new site next to the main road between Paarl and Wellington, almost everything will run on electricity generated by the CES solar system on the warehouse roof. Christo Theron, IMPERIAL Cargo Group MD, told FTW that he planned to complete the move to the new transport depot about mid- March. Moving to industrial solar power buys IMPERIAL Cargo two things – all the IT on site runs on clean power without frequency shifts, voltage spikes and brownouts, and the company does not need a separate uninterruptible power supply (UPS) or a generator to keep IT and lights going in case of a power cut. The solar system can serve as a UPS for three days, even if there is no sunlight at all, or for five days with its normal solar input. Whether it is cloudy or raining, the panels on the warehouse roof continue to generate electricity as there is still a portion of ultraviolet and infrared light coming through the clouds – maybe 20 or 30% of normal sunlight. The technology used in these panels has the ability to work when there is reduced radiation, all the way through to direct sunlight. Office workers at IMPERIAL Cargo in Paarl will probably notice that the building does a few things by itself, even if the solar power feed to the computers is not visible. Motion sensors tell the building where the people are, so lights get switched off in empty offices. If it happens to be a cold day and there is extra capacity on the solar system, says electrical engineer Glen Kwosniek, the building switches some air-conditioning from outside grid power to the solar system. With solar, the logistics hub stays ahead of clients’ and government’s expectations to make logistics greener, he said.