SA LAUNCHES ONE OF AFRICA'S BIGGEST WIND FARMS

Built by a consortium led by British company Globeleq, the 138- megawatt (MW) wind farm is one of Africa's biggest – larger than the 120-MW Ashegoda windfarm that was unveiled by Ethiopia in October 2013, though not as big as the Tarfaya wind farm in south-western Morocco, which started producing energy in April and will eventually generate up to 300 MW of electricity.

The R3-billion Jeffrey's Bay wind farm, located between the towns of Jeffrey’s Bay and Humansdorp in South Africa's Eastern Cape province, was officially inaugurated recently.

The Jeffrey's Bay wind farm, comprising 60 80-metre high turbines spread over 3 700 hectares, will supply enough clean, renewable electricity to power more than 100 000 homes a year, helping South Africa to avoid production of 420 000 tonnes of carbon dioxide annually.

The facility was built under the Government's renewable energy programme for independent power producers, which aims to add 3 725 MW of wind, solar photovoltaic and concentrating solar power to South Africa's energy mix. – Source: www.southafrica.info

back