E&OE SEPTEMBER 2015 © WILDERNESS SAFARIS

Xigera Camp – Breaking New Grounds In Sustainable Energy Solutions By Kai Collins

June 2011 - Situated in the heart of Botswana’s pristine Okavango Delta, Wilderness Safaris’ Xigera Camp is yet another example of how the company is committed to having a minimal environmental impact and operating in the most sustainable manner possible. For years Xigera has been operating off diesel generators for at least 8 hours per day and a set of batteries and an inverter system to power the camp for the rest of the day. On the 13th of June 2011 the generators were turned off and the power for the entire camp was switched across to a new photovoltaic solar plant consisting of a total of 135 solar panels producing a maximum of 30kW or renewable energy – enough power from the sun to run the entire camp including all fridges and freezers.

There is a small backup generator of 25kVa that automatically turns on to boost the batteries should their charge run too low.

Large bank of batteries to provide power at night Backup 25kVa generator

E&OE SEPTEMBER 2015 © WILDERNESS SAFARIS

Xigera photovoltaic solar array from the air

Inverters and state-of-the-art computer-controlled power regulators Xigera staff at switch-over ceremony

Water heating Some of the existing geysers in the camp consist of evacuated tube solar water geysers which do not require any electricity at all but need to be placed in the sun – which is not so easy on such an amazingly shaded island – in order to get around this problem, state-of-the-art Thermodynamic geysers were installed. These include the latest technology in extremely efficient heat-pumps (with a tiny compressor requiring very little power) that extracts warmth from the air and uses it to heat the water – similar to the way a fridge works but in reverse using ambient temperature and the compression and expansion of gases to generate heat instead of cold. This process is also made more efficient by placing the warming panel where it is exposed to sunlight some of the time, which gives it an extra heat boost and it requires even less power. These Thermodynamic geysers are so efficient that they can produce warm water at any time of day or night throughout the year and they require less than one fifth of the power of a conventional electric geyser. The geysers also have an electrical element as a backup which can be

E&OE SEPTEMBER 2015 © WILDERNESS SAFARIS

switched on manually as a backup – which is also powered by the solar plant consisting of solar panels, batteries and inverters.

Thermodynamic geyser Heating panel for thermodynamic geyser

Small compressor for thermodynamic geyser Evacuated tube solar water geysers