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In South Africa, the Wolf Wind Farm project under the Renewable Energy Independent Power Producers Programme (REI4P) bid window 5 has reached financial close, and construction has started.
Initially developed by energy developer JUWI and successfully bid by IPP Red Rocket, the 84MW World Wind Project is located in the Eastern Cape, two hours from the city of Gqeberha. The wind farm is projected to begin generating electricity for the national grid by Ql of 2024.
This is JUWIs second wind project to reach financial close under REI4P. Their first was the 138MW Garob Wind Project which reached commercial operation in 2021.
The REIPPPP Bid Window 5 Request for Proposals (RFP) was released on 12 April 2021 and was the first bid window to be launched under the Ministerial Determination promulgated on 25 September 2022 under IRP 2019.
The bid window aims to procure a total of 2,600MW energy, consisting of 1,600MW onshore wind and 1000MW solar PV plants.
Wind farm to deliver clean energy
Red Rocket is among the first four companies to sign a commercial lease and use of
land contract with Eskom around Mpumalanga power stations.
Matteo Brambilla, CEO of Red Rocket, said: "The Wolf Wind Project will be generating more than 360GWh of clean electricity for the South African grid per year, offsetting 374,400 tonnes of C02 each year and the project will bring over R200 million community investment over 20 years through local social projects."
In addition to Wolf Wind Project, they will also be working on two 150MWac solar power plants with a battery energy storage component on the Dwars-in-de-Weg parcels of land they have been allocated Alpha, Mpumalanga.
Chris Bellingham, Head of Project Development, JUWI SA, pointed out that a key barrier to bringing large projects like Wolf Wind Farm online is grid capacity. "Whilst were working on ways to overcome the challenges imposed on many of our projects by the Cape grid constraints, to meet the significant and growing demand for clean reliable power, were also actively developing a large portfolio of new and regionally diverse projects in unconstrained areas of the countrys grid." |
