Since its inception Rays of Hope maintains its focus on the less spectacular but highly important base load supply required by the Village of Joy (VoJ) and the regular school feeding. Having successfully assisted in the funding of the minibus we now conceive the next infrastructure projects hoping to attract new donors. Our main objective is the reduction of the operating cost of the village in the long term once the upfront investment has been secured and the implementation has been completed.

A considerable amount of base load financing for the VoJ is currently absorbed by our electricity consumption. Since South Africa's annual solar irradiation can reach up to 2,200 kWh/kWp we wish to harness this resource in the following two ways:

According to the current state of planning under project Solar Rays 1 we would install up to 20 kWp of PV capacity within the VoJ compound. In order to facilitate the financing we might opt to implement the project in two phases. Depending on backup battery capacity we would expect to supply most of the VoJ electricity demand. There may also be the option to sell electricity to the adjacent Lesedi Cultural Village.

Project Solar Rays 2 is targeting to provide the VoJ with warm water from solar-thermal installations.

We plan to collect rain water in a cisterne. The objective is to reduce electric energy required for pumping of water into the tank, to improve the watering of our garden and to avoid further scouring of the compound during heavy rains by mounting of rain gutters and installations of a drainage system.

The main gate to the Village of Joy is located some 300m away along the road. For control and improved operation we should consider the installation of a camera/intercom system as well as an automatic gate operation.