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Current news on the work done by the Friends of Hwange Trust.
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Newsletter - March 2016

 

Dear Friends of Hwange

Thanks to support from many donors, Friends of Hwange Trust has been able to make considerable progress with new solar water pump installations this year. It has long been our plan to decrease the Park’s dependency on diesel engines. There are two main reasons for this: first, the engines are expensive to run and maintain, and secondly, they are not eco-friendly. However, they do pump water 24/7 at a time of year when every drop counts, while solar can only pump water during 10 or so daylight hours.  
 
It is important to note that water can only be pumped at the replenishment rate of the borehole so simply installing a bigger pump to produce a greater volume of water does not make sense. If water is pumped too fast, the hole runs dry and the pump shuts down, as it cannot pump air. It only restarts when the hole replenishes after about 15 minutes. So we adjust the rate at which the pumps produce water and set them at the maximum replenishment rate of the borehole. The depth to water, known as the head, has a significant effect on the output but on average we have found that the solar units produce about half the amount of water in 10 hours that diesel engines pump in 24.  
 
Because we need to provide sufficient water during the dry season to maintain a large animal population, particularly elephants, we have explored ways that allow us to supply a similar amount of water using solar power as would be pumped using a diesel engine. We are not keen to embark on generator backup at night as then we’re back to using diesel and maintenance becomes an issue. Charging batteries by day to pump water at night is not economically viable at the present time. Accordingly we decided to drill a second borehole at key pans and install 2 solar pumps, one on each hole. This year, we have already drilled second boreholes at Makwa, Sinanga, Nyamandhlovu and Caterpillar and will soon start drilling at Dopi and then Jambile.
 
 
We are replacing the windmills at Shapi and Mbiza with solar pumps, and converting the existing diesel engines at Manga 1 and Tshebe Tshebe to solar.  Thus at least 10 new solar pump systems will be installed this year.

We extend huge gratitude to the following for helping us realize this progress:
The Bodhi Tree Foundation (and donor)
Shannon Elizabeth of Animal Avengers and her donor  Greg Polisseni
WEZ Matabeleland and supporters of their annual fundraiser “Pumping Legs for Water”.
The Taberer family, Zimbabwe
Agristructures, Zimbabwe for beautifully engineered solar stands.
J Mann (Pvt)Ltd, Zimbabwe
Cargo Carriers, Zimbabwe who yet again transported tons of materials all the way to Hwange free of charge.
The Hide Safari Camp (and donors for supporting Mbiza)
All donors worldwide who have sent contributions no matter how small.
We can’t name everyone and also many people prefer not to be named in our newsletters.
 
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Trustees: D.C. Dell; B. Edwards; B. Wolhuter; D. St Quintin; Dr. K. Jenkins; G. J. Brebner
Copyright © 2016 The Friends Of Hwange Trust, All rights reserved.


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