Mantrac Ghana Limited has commissioned a 250-kilowatt solar power facility at the Fanmilk depot in Kasoa, Awutu Senya East Municipality of the Central Region.

According to the Sales Development Manager, Andrey Pata, they were able to complete the project in roughly one month which is according to the schedule for the average-sized project. 

He noted that what makes it more important is that this is a rental project, helping the customer to make savings on their electricity rates.

“What makes it outstanding for Mantrac is that, with this project, the equipment belongs to Mantrac. We are renting it out to the customer – helping them make a lot of savings on their electricity consumption from the national grid.

"We are delivering complete independence as well as helping make the environment very clean, very green, which is also the idea of Mantrac – promoting as much as possible ecological solutions for the countries where we operate,” he stressed.

 “We are also going to provide for the next five years aftermarket support: taking care of the equipment in terms of service, maintenance, cleanliness and hoping for future additions to the project for phase two and three – if possible, as well as to have the same project on other sites, offices and branches of our customer,” he said at the commissioning.

He concluded that Mantrac has quite a number of solar projects completed across Ghana for our customers and there are a few more coming up in the near future.

20% electricity cost saved

For his part, Operations Director Fanmilk West Africa, Nazaire Djako, explained to B&FT that since the solar power installation they have saved up to 20 per cent of their electricity cost across the numerous depots in the country and also their head office.

He noted further that the solar power project is a result of Danone’s – parent company of Fanmilk- vision to reduce power emissions into the air by their company in all of the countries where they have manufacturing plants and distribution outlets.

“We have what we call ‘one planet, one health’. It is a green project whereby every country, every manufacturing facility or distribution facility we have worldwide is trying to really push to save energy and save the planet.

“It has to force us to go the extra mile to start looking at how we can generate power and energy differently. So, the idea has come to our mind that we may have to go solar because we have sun here in Africa. That is what has been the root cause of what we are seeing today,” Mr Djako elaborated.