Soetwater wind farm in South Africa commissioned

The 147MW Soetwater wind farm in South Africa has been commissioned. The South African subsidiary of Italian Independent Power Producer (IPP), Enel Green Power announced the power plant has officially commenced commercial operations.

The wind farm is located in the local municipality of Karoo Hoogland in the Northern Cape. It is equipped with 36 wind turbines installed by the Danish operator Vestas Wind Systems and is set to feed clean electricity into the state-owned Eskom grid.

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Clean energy

The power project which cost US $208M was financed by Enel through loans from Nedbank and Absa, two banks that are heavily involved in the financing of renewable energy projects in South Africa. Works on the farm project began in 2016, as part of the fourth bidding window of the Renewable Energy Independent Power Producer Procurement Programme of South Africa (REIPPP).

Enel will sell the electricity under a 20-year power purchase agreement (PPA). It is estimated the wind farm will be able to inject 585 GWh of clean electricity per year into South Africa’s national grid, avoiding 600,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2) emissions over the same period.

“The Soetwater wind farm brings the number of Enel Green Power wind farms in operation in South Africa to seven. These include the 88 MW Nojoli, 140 MW Oyster Bay, Nxuba and Garob wind farms, as well as the 147 MW Karusa wind farm,” says Manuele Battisti, Enel Green Power’s country manager for South Africa.