Chobe Game Lodge goes green

Saturday the 11th of October 2008 was a day that all at Chobe Game Lodge had been eagerly anticipating for quite some time. Almost a year earlier the decision to purchase 24 Solar Panels at a substantial cost had been made and the aforementioned ordered. The logistics in obtaining said items however had taken longer than anticipated but eventually there they were. The panels were gingerly offloaded and a brace quickly built for these particularly fragile items to hold them until installation could be completed. This proved to be a highly entertaining exercise participated in by all from our highly skilled Maintenance staff to the Gardeners even including input from various members of Management.


These panels were to be our first foray into going green on a large scale, with major energy saving taking place especially in relation to the electrical geysers which are used extensively during the year. This would also obviously relate into a huge financial and energy resource conservation amounting to an almost 65% power saving.

We have six geysers at the lodge at present that heat approximately 6000 liters of water daily. The 24 panels have been split up into sections of 8 placed on the Main building and the East and West wings respectively. We had to install inline Solar Driven Water Pumps on the West and East Wings due to the location of our Solar Panels, being above the electrical geysers. Hot water rises, so to ensure consistent circulation the solar heated water had to be forced downwards to the geysers. These little pumps are quite interesting due to the fact that they pump faster as the water heats up. The first panels were put up at the beginning of November and are already making a difference. The Management and Staff at Chobe Game Lodge take it to heart ensuring all practical measures are implemented which can result in the decrease or reduction of pollution as well as limiting the exploitation of natural resources which made the solar panel water heating system ideal for our purposes as solar energy is clean and renewable energy.



Management also recently made the decision to replace all the existing incandescent light bulbs in the hotel with energy saver bulbs resulting in an energy saving of approximately 80%.The globes are low energy consumption units, using only 11W as opposed to the average 60W incandescent standard bulb. Over 400 bulbs have been replaced throughout the lodge and surrounds with Warm White bulbs being installed in the rooms and Yellow bulbs along the walkways. These bulbs last approximately six times longer than normal bulbs and attract far fewer insects. Updates will follow regarding the success of these projects.