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UFS installs solar plants on all campuses, bolstering renewable energy amid continuing power cuts

18 August 2023 | Story Lunga Luthuli | Photo Francois van Vuuren

Bloemfontein Campus Solar Farm — The solar plant on the UFS’s Bloemfontein Campus, part of the university’s commitment to combatting loadshedding and embracing sustainable energy.

The University of the Free State (UFS) has installed solar plants across its three campuses.

The university says this is in response to the call for urgent solutions to loadshedding and the promotion of environmentally sustainable, cleaner, and renewable energy solutions.

Nicolaas Esterhuysen, Director of Engineering Services at UFS University Estates, said,

“The PV (photovoltaic) systems are grid-tied without storage to ensure maximum benefits and faster payback periods.”

Esterhuysen said the UFS has saved up to R32,5 million since the first solar plant was commissioned in 2017 to help the UFS reduce the impact of loadshedding and its carbon footprint and energy costs. “This will substantially increase this year with the commissioning of two large new ground-mounted solar plants on the Bloemfontein Campus,” he said.

“The microgrid installation on Qwaqwa Campus is one of the biggest solar diesel hybrid systems installed in South Africa. It allows us to keep the campus running despite excessive power interruptions.”

The UFS is currently embarking on research as part of the Grid-related Research Group (GRRP) under the Interdisciplinary Centre for Digital Futures (ICDF) to also help staff and students with understanding renewable energy and sustainability.

Esterhuysen said the plants are further evidence of the UFS’s commitment to renewable and energy saving solutions. “It is our flagship project, but our focus is also on energy saving initiatives – to ensure we are becoming more energy efficient and eliminate energy wastage. We have plans for expansion on all campuses. Some of the highlights are an off-grid solution for the new student centre at Qwaqwa Campus and to make South Campus a self-sustaining campus.”

The installed grid-tied system solar plants are operating without batteries on all three campuses, giving the university an optimal configuration between capital cost and payback period.

The energy generated at the solar plants:

Bloemfontein Campus – 3688 kWp

Qwaqwa Campus – 918 kWp

South Campus – 759 kWp

Paradys – 125 kWp

News Archive

Honouring Stanley Trapido – one of the most influential historians South Africa has produced

2014-08-14

Prof Charles van Onselen
Photo: Supplied

The International Studies Group and the History Department at the UFS hosted a seminar on Stanley Trapido by Prof Charles van Onselen on Monday 11 August 2014.

The seminar honoured the life and work of Trapido, one of the most important and influential historians South Africa has ever produced.

Trapido is probably best known for his work on the causes and consequences of the South African War of 1899–1902. It was to this broad time period that Prof Van Onselen spoke in his paper ‘The Political Economy of the South African Republic, 1881–1895’.

Prof Van Onselen’s lecture provided a major reinterpretation of the origins and causes of the Jameson Raid while emphasising that Paul Kruger’s ZAR was a state beset by crime and corruption. It was particularly fitting that Prof Van Onselen gave the inaugural seminar paper, since Trapido supervised his Oxford doctoral thesis.

The International Studies Group and the History Department were extremely honoured by Trapido’s widow, the Booker Prize nominated author Barbara, attending the seminar. They wish to thank her for donating her husband’s academic library to the UFS.

Following the Sharpeville massacre of 1960, the Trapido-couple emigrated to England. While there, Trapido began to shape what is now known as the ‘revisionist’ school of South African historiography. He argued the importance of analysing capital and class formation, which he maintained informed the racial ideologies that culminated in apartheid.

Prof Van Onselen’s inaugural seminar presentation will be followed later this term by papers from David Moore, Sabelo Ndlovu-Gatsheni and Giacomo Macola.

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