Monday 4 December 2017: WBHS is proud to partner with the University of the Western Cape and Lumière Technologies as the first African school to take steps to harvest the energy of the sun, stored in locally-produced Li-ion batteries. With the roll-out potential to power LED lighting, security cameras, Bluetooth speakers, and WiFi hotspots around the campus, the first ever – and locally created – Solaris Energy Pole has been ‘planted’ at Wynberg Boys’ High School as a sustainability initiative piloted by the School’s Chief Finance and Governance Officer, Mr Jacques Groenewald.
WBHS’ first Solaris Energy Pole, positioned outside the Support Centre, uses a Li-ion battery, created in the Energy Storage Innovation Lab led by Professor Ben Bladergroen at the University of the Western Cape. It is unique in being the only Li-ion battery produced on the African continent. With harvested sunlight stored in the Li-ion battery, students and staff will be able to ‘top-up’ their phone batteries, outdoors, for free … effectively “charging-at-no-charge”.
Eco-consciously-engineered and manufactured locally, the Solaris Energy Pole is ingeniously simplistic, well-suited for its multiple purpose potential. And the best part of all, fully recyclable at the end of its use.
“Energy is the power to change things … It is the ability to do work … EMPOWER YOURSELF” – words that we can identify with, considering how technology-reliant we are on battery powered devices.
A #GreenWynberg Project with grateful thanks to Mr Ulrich Lorenzen of Lumière Technologies and Professor Ben Bladergroen of UWC – click the link to find out more about the Solaris Energy Pole.
