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CTS was approached by the Botswana Meteorological Department and the University of Hamburg with the request to install automatic weather stations across Botswana. A total of 10 stations were engineered and build at our workshop in Windhoek prior to installation commencement. With our own tower design, the installation time is reduced to nearly 8 hours per tower.

The stations are equipped with sensors from Vaisala, Kipp and Zonen. At the heart of each station is the CR1000 logger from Campbell Scientific. Each station is capable to measure the following:

• Wind speed
• Wind direction
• Humidity
• Air Temperature
• Irradiance
• Barometric pressure
• Ground Temperature
• Rain
• Leaf wetness

In addition to the above parameters the following parameters are calculated by the logger by means of mathematical models.

• Dew point temperature
• Wet bulb temperature
• Sunshine duration

The data from the station is transmitted to ftp servers situated in Gaborone/Botswana as well as Hamburg/Germany on an hourly bases over locally available GSM network providers. Once the data is uploaded to the server in Hamburg, it is processed and posted on a publicly available website. This website collects data of numerous stations across Namibia, Botswana, Zambia, Angola and South Africa for research purposes. A total of 8000km was covered in just under 4 weeks.

National Botanical Research institute approached CTS to upgrade two of their existing AWS to satellite communication and subsequent installation at Kanovlei in the Tsumkwe Area as well as Koichab Pan close to Lüderitz.

Communication is via Meteosat satellites and based on a “fire and forget” principal which unfortunately does not allow remote maintenance procedures.

The stations form part of the SASSCAL Weathernet and measure all important meteorological parameters.

Weather data can be viewed at: www.sasscalweathernet.org 

A 200kW PV peak grid tied PV system was installed at Quality Tyres Lafrenz Industrial Area. Remote monitoring of all 10 inverter allows for early fault detection and system degradation as well as maintenance planing.

System Specifications are:

• 680x 295W Canadian Solar modules
• 10x Fronius Symo 20.0-3 Grid Inverter
• Roof mounting structure for IBR roof sheeting
• AC surge protection
• configured for remote monitoring

Based on our excellent service and knowledge we have rendered to the Botswana Meteorological Department as well as University of Hamburg, CTS was able to secure the 2nd Phase of the manufacture, supply and installation of automatic weather stations in Botswana.

The stations supplied to make use of satellite communication due to the extreme remoteness of the sites, these were:

• Mababe (Savuti Marsh)
• Tubu (Okavango)
• Baines Drift (Eastern Botswana)
• Xade (Central Kalahari Game Park)
• Ngwaltle (Western Botswana)

These stations are not located at any Meteorological Department property, thus fences had to be erected for protection against animals.

Station design is based on our well proven tripod mast with all relevant sensors and a CR1000 logger as the processing unit. Data is transmitted at fixed timeslots allocated by EUMETSAT (Germany) on an hourly basis. Satellite transmission is based on a fire and forget principle, thus no remote maintenance can be done.

Weather data can be found at: http://www.sasscalweathernet.org .

CTS removed old and obsolete laundry equipment and installed new machines.

The installed equipment consisted of:

1. 2 x new Primus FS40 high speed washer extractors
2. 2 x Maytag energy saving tumble dryers
3. 1 x Miele through-feed drying ironers
4. inculding laundry trolleys, ironing trolleys and other small accessories
   
   

Pionieerspark Medical Centre can call themselves a proud owner of a 38kW photovoltaic grid feed system. Considerable savings on the monthly electricity bill are achieved as most of the electricity requirements are produced directly at the customer. Excess energy is fed back into the grid and credited on the monthly electricity bill by City of Windhoek.

The system consists of 144 265W PV modules mounted flat on the roof of the building with 2 Fronius three phase grid feed inverters and remote monitoring via the Fronius App on the cell phone. Remote monitoring allows CTS to advise the client on possible faults and recommended actions to be taken.