By Berio Mbala
WINDHOEK
Small Okahandja will be a pioneer in environmental energy when it starts utilizing solar-powered streetlights as part of a pilot project in a joint venture forged between the Municipality of Okahandja and the Solar Lighting & Appliances Company.
The project comes as a result of a call from the Solar Lighting & Appliances Company to install streetlights along the main road at Karibib main and along the Mose Tjitendero Road in Okahandja because the lack of lights causes many road accidents along these streets.
Chief Executive Officer Selias Soko said the Municipality of Okahandja accepted their request and invited them to present their pilot project proposal on solar street lighting, parking bay lighting and traffic control.
“We won the proposal and commenced it by conducting a feasibility study and soil-testing to see what kind of poles will be suitable for the area, and the poles were identified by the Municipality that provided us with steel poles,” said Soko.
“The Solar Lighting & Appliances Company is a leading electricity-generating, supplier, installer and exporter of state-of-the-art solar-powered appliances, products and systems in Namibia,” the CEO stated.
“We felt that our energy instruments would contribute to the town’s economic competitiveness by providing the town with Solar-Powered Street Lighting (SPSL) in streets which are renewable sources of energy,” he said.
Solar-Powered Street Lighting is a commercial solar-powered street lighting system that can be used for the lighting of streets, roads and other public areas.
“We started with the Okahandja pilot project, after which we are moving to Erongo Red where we will put the same lights along the beach of Walvis Bay.
Contacts have been made with the Walvis Bay Municipality,” he said.
The Administrator and Business Development Manager for Solar Lighting and Appliances Company, Gumbo Durban, said the company is a subsidiary of Bravio Investments which intends to harness Namibia’s abundant solar and wind energy for the generation of affordable and cheaper electricity in the country.
Bravio Investment Company is a joint venture forged between foreign investors who have experience in the field of renewable energy technology, hygienic instrumentation and outdoor advertising and marketing, together with advertising counter-partners.
Bravio Investment Company feels its energy instruments would contribute to Namibia’s economic competitiveness, as documented in the country’s Energy Policy and Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), as well as the government’s development goals.
Durban said, “In early February we conducted a workshop with local technicians who were awarded certificates for their participation in the workshop.”
“After the approval of Okahndja’s proposal, we invited them to come and work for our company and do the installation of poles in Okahandja, which they did well. They are still working for their companies which they formed before us,” he said.
Durban said that at the moment Solar Lighting and Appliance Company is to send five of them to the United States for further training on the Solar Street Lighting System and other Solar products.
A trainee who attended one of the workshops, Epafras Nambinga, said the same company intends sending them to the US in May for further training in solar energy.
He said, “I am very grateful for what the company is doing for us. I met the company through NAMRED, and then the CEO of Solar Lighting & Appliances Company called us after he saw our names with NAMRED, and he was willing to help small electrical companies get off the ground, which his company is doing right now.”
“As promised at the workshop, the company is planning to produce skilled local technicians. The promise is being fulfilled by sending us to the United States for further training,” he said.