To celebrate Global Wind Day, Red Rocket, an African independent power producer, held a dialogue with industry leaders to discuss issues of wind energy in South Africa and provide solutions to the country’s energy crisis.
Global Wind Day is a worldwide event that is celebrated annually in June. It is a day for discovering wind energy, its power, and the possibilities it holds to reshape energy systems, decarbonise economies, and boost jobs and growth.
The speakers of the dialogue included Brian Cunningham from Red Rocket, Niveshen Govender from the South African Wind Energy Association (Sawea), Sunette Smith from Reatile, Compton Saunders Nordex, and Jason Cope Veld. All the speakers agreed that the country had enough skills and resources to deal with the energy crisis, but industry leaders needed to work together to address the challenges.
Govender said wind was a very important source of energy that could be integrated into the country’s grid.
"Wind energy has the capacity to combat climate change, reduce the country’s carbon footprint, and also create jobs; however, industry leaders and the government need to unite and work together to realise its full potential, and we need to change our mindset if we want to realise this," said Govender.
Asked whether the industry in the country had enough skills to assist Eskom with load shedding in light of Minister of Electricity, Kgosientsho Ramokgopa, saying that South Africa is seeking affordable solar panels, wind turbines, battery storage, and renewable technology from China, Cunningham said South Africa had enough skills in the country to address the challenges we faced.
"There are enough skills in the country, I think the minister was talking about a trade deal, not the level of individual skills. It's more of a political decision because the country is part of BRICS," said Cunningham.
Ramakgopa said the country has up to 66 gigawatts (GW) of wind and solar projects in the pipeline, and that more than 5 500 megawatts (MW) of this would come online by 2026.
In training to meet the country’s energy demand, Cunningham said Red Rocket owned and operated the Roggeveld wind farm, which consisted of 47 Nordex AW125 wind turbines and had a nameplate of 147MW with the lowest electricity tariff of any wind farm in operation in South Africa.
It became commercially operational in February 2022 and generated more than 600GWh a year, enough for about 190 000 typical South African households.
It also had a few other wind farms that were under construction, such as the Brandvalley wind farm, which consisted of 32 Vestas V150 wind turbines with a nameplate of 144MW. This project is scheduled to be commissioned in Q4 of 2024 and is planned to generate almost 600GWh per annum, providing for more than 185 000 typical South African households.