Solar power solutions

South African Police Services acknowledged the potential of solar lights as emergency lighting at their police stations due to the fact that the electricity grid is not stable enough to render a professional service to their community. Betta Lights were requested by the South African Police Services to install a solar light solution at the Boschkop police station in the east of Pretoria, as a proof of concept to evaluate solar power for emergency lighting. 

The project consists of the following building blocks and minimum expectations:

• Prison cell lights that should supply efficient lighting in prison cells, should not be physically destroyable by inmates, should not be used to hurt any inmates and be able to switch on/off automatically at dusk and dawn. If needed, the solar prison cell lights should be used as the main lighting solution for prison cells.
• Internal solar lights are used when the main electricity grid fails. These lights should illuminate areas such as the charge office, public toilets, radio room, holding cells, weapons safe, document store and trauma centers.
• External solar security lights supply efficient terrain illumination for parking areas, office entrance, walk ways, police vehicle parking, dark external areas and fencing. The solution should also be hardened against pilferage of the system elements and withstands environmental elements like hail, wind, temperature fluctuations and corrosion.

The project kicked off early in February 2009, and all tests were completed by end of March 2009. All products were successfully tested by SAPS engineers for meeting all their requirements. The tests were so successful that Boschkop is using the external solar security lights as the main source if external illumination.