Solar Turbine Africa

Supply Run Success and Sufferings

Over the past few weeks, the Solar Turbine Group has been occupied with running madly between Lesotho and South Africa, procuring equipment and materials with which we will set up our workshop in Bethel and build our systems.

The group split up and made several trips to Bloemfontein and Johannesburg, where we had a lot of success, but with a lot of suffering.

Our suffering came from several long drives and several days of running around various cities on what sometimes felt like a wild goose chase. It turns out that securing suppliers in unfamiliar cities can be quite difficult. Especially when you are seeking some things that don't seem to exist. Then to add insult to injury, declaring these items through the border always takes at least 2 hours. So when you pull into the border at midnight after an exhausting day, you're still not done!

But at the end of those trips, we did find success in that we managed to source a mill, a lathe, various other shop tools, steel, electronics, reflective material for the troughs, plumbing and fittings for the Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC), instrumentation, and many consumables like fasteners and such. We also made many promising relationships with potentially long-term suppliers along the way.

Further suffering, however, persists as we are still challenged by finding the right components for the ORC. The right heat exchangers, expanders, and pumps are all eluding us at the moment, but after several days planted in the internet cafe and on the phone, I think we are getting close. (However, if anyone out there knows where to find such components in South Africa, I'm all ears!)

Here are a few pics from our mad dashes....

Success! Machine shop on wheels!