Acsa To Invest In Solar To Secure Airport Power

Airports Company South Africa ACSA plans to invest in solar power to strengthen backup energy systems at Cape Town International Airport.

To prevent similar disruptions, the company will issue tenders for solar installations to supplement its backup systems.

However, during the recent outage, a fault triggered a cascading failure in the airports ring network. This impacted both sides of the fuel farm supply. The generators functioned as intended but eventually tripped due to excessive heat build-up. As a corrective measure, an additional temporary generator has been installed to mitigate such challenges.

Looking ahead, the company plans to invest in solar backup systems. ACSA is advancing sustainability initiatives including tri-generation and solar plant installations at major airports. Tenders for these projects will be released soon marking a significant step in enhancing energy resilience and sustainability, the company said.

In the meantime, the airports power grid has been reinforced. The airport has a firm power supply from Eskom, capable of meeting all its energy needs, along with a non-firm Eskom supply that feeds remote sites. Immediate upgrades include replacing impacted cables, reconfiguring the ring network to increase redundancy and modernising switchgear and protection systems to align with the growing complexity of the network, ACSA said.