South Africa - Wind farm development to go ahead

South Africa's first commercially available, wind-generated electricity will become a reality in the Western Cape. This comes after an appeal against an erection of a wind farm near Darling in the Western Cape was turned down by the department of environmental affairs and tourism, citing the reasons against it as 'not convincing' enough.

The development will entail the erection of four Danish supplied wind turbines with a total power output of about 5,2 mega-watts. The proposed activity will be located on the farm Windhoek (remainder of portion 552 of Slangkop) 12km northwest of Darling and approximately 2km north of the road to Yzerfontein on the West Coast, Western Cape.

AN Wind Energy and Darling Wind Power will supply the turbines and develop the wind farm respectively, under the facilitation of the Danish International Development Agency (Danida).

Andre Otto, the deputy director of minerals and energy, says the parties involved are still busy with negotiations and foresee that the development will start in April 2006. He added that the energy will be linked to the Eskom and Cape Town Municipality grids.