Multinational company Building Energy has donated a 3.12 kW off-grid solar photovoltaic (PV) rooftop power plant to the Italian consulate in Cape Town.

The plant, comprising 12 PV panels, will generate about 5 MWh/y of energy, significantly decreasing the building’s carbon footprint through a reduced reliance on the national grid.

The beginning of operations was celebrated on Thursday, on the occasion of the PV power plant’s inauguration in the presence of Cape Town-based Consul of Italy Alfonso Tagliaferri and Building Energy Africa and Middle East MD Matteo Brambilla.

“We are excited [to be] here today to celebrate the inauguration of the solar rooftop system, developed by Building Energy for the Consulate of Italy in Cape Town,” said Brambilla, who added that the company is “proud to be making its contribution in providing the building with a power plant to produce clean and sustainable renewable-energy that can help the consulate reduce its reliance on grid electricity”.

Tagliaferri enthused that the consulate is proud to partner with Building Energy for a project that will allow the consulate to reduce its carbon footprint, as well as its electricity bills.

“I want to personally thank the company’s MD Matteo Brambilla, together with his team, for having believed in this idea from the very beginning, notwithstanding the technical and administrative challenges it implied.”

He further explained that this sponsorship’s importance is twofold. On the one hand it testifies to the vitality and the competence of the Italian business presence in Cape Town. On the other, it perfectly fits the global effort in fighting climate change initiated since 2012 by the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs with the ‘Green Farnesina’ initiative.

This initiative sees the Ministry, together with several Italian embassies and consulates around the world, reducing their carbon footprint in a shift towards renewable energies, paperless workflow and recycling.   

From its Cape Town office, Building Energy manages and coordinates over 40 projects that are operational or under development in Africa and the Middle East across the technologies of solar, wind and small-scale hydroelectric energy, including projects in South Africa, Uganda, Mali, Malawi, Cameroon and Côte d’Ivoire.

Building Energy will soon start the construction of a 140 MW wind project in Roggeveld, in the Laingsburg area between the Northern and Western Cape provinces.

This project will generate about 600 GWh/y.

Further, within the next 12 months, Building Energy will also start construction of a 5 MW wind farm in Klawer, in the Western Cape; two 5 MW PV plants in Skuitdrift, in the Northen Cape; and a 4.7 MW small hydro-project in Kruisvallei, in the Free State.