Mega onshore wind farm in South Africa commissioned

A major onshore wind farm in South Africa has been commissioned Mainstream Renewable Power  a consortium behind the development has announced.

The wind firm facility is expected to contribute 304,800MWh of power per annum when operating at full capacity. Nonetheless, 69,000 South African homes will be powered by the electricity supply from the wind firm.

Constructed on a 7,500 hectares of land, the Noupoort Wind plant comprises of 35 wind turbines with each having a height of 99m. The plant is located in Umsobomvu Municipal Area which is 10km east of Noupoort in the Northern Cape.

Developers behind the Noupoort onshore Wind farm in South Africa is Lekela Power, a joint venture between investor Actis and global solar and wind company Mainstream Renewable Power. The three joint venture developers have also plans to construct new wind and solar capacity plants generating over 1,300MW of power across Africa by 2018.

Other members of the consortium include Nourpoort Renewable Energy Trust, the IDEAS Managed Fund, Futuregrowth Asset Management, Genesis Eco-Energy and the Thebe Investment Corporation in partnership with Lereko Metier Sustainable Capital.

The US$132.7m wind plant project commissioned all its 35 turbines and they were connected to the country’s national grid. The project has been under construction for the last 17 months before commissioning.

Noupoort Wind Farm country programme manager, Savva Antoniadis, described the project as a milestone completed as targeted meeting all the Eskom’s requirements which includes the grid code compliance and thereby achieving the commercial operations dates after 17 months of construction.