Major renewables project comes to the Eastern Cape

An 84-megawatt wind project has reached financial close in the Eastern Cape.

JUWI Renewable Energies, a global solar, wind and hybrid project developer, has announced that its large-scale renewable Wolf Wind Project is under construction and is projected to begin generating electricity for the national grid by Q1 2024.

The project is set to generate more than 360 GWh of clean electricity for the South African grid per year, offsetting 374,400 tonnes of CO2 each year, and the project will bring over R200 million in community investment over 20 years through local social projects.

It was initially developed by JUWI and bid by Red Rocket in the fifth round of the government’s renewable energy independent power producers procurement programme (REI4P).

The company now has over 4GW (1.5GW of wind, 2GW of solar and 500MW of hybrid projects) worth of renewable projects at various stages of development for both public and private entities.

Richard Doyle, the managing director of JUWI South Africa, said that the rollout of REI4P projects is very encouraging as developing projects can help South Africa address its energy crisis.

Doyle said that there had been exponential growth in demand from the public and private sectors for large-scale renewable projects and for hybrid projects that integrate battery storage.

The company further aims to support the demand with the development of a further 1GW of wind, solar and hybrid projects in 2023.

JUWI said that it does, however, face some challenges regarding large projects: the group said that grid capacity is one of the major concerns.

Chris Bellingham, the head of project development at JUWI said that while they are working on ways to overcome the challenges imposed on many of their projects by the Eastern Cape’s grid constraints, to meet the increasing demand for clean, reliable power, it is expanding projects that are also in the unconstrained area of the country’s grid.

The new wind farm will complement another renewable project recently launched in the province. The Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality on 3 March announced its plans to construct an R2.7 billion solar power plant.

The Parsons Power Park initiative will supply 150MW of electricity to the region’s power grid. The construction of the initial phase, which will generate 25MW, is scheduled to commence in November of this year, according to the municipality.

The initial phase is anticipated to take roughly ten months to finish, after which the park’s subsequent expansion, producing an additional 125MW, will follow.

The image below is an example of one of JUWI’s previous wind projects in South Africa, the Garop wind farm:

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