• Energy producer Red Rocket and renewables firm Vestas are building three new wind turbine parks in the Western and Eastern Cape provinces of South Africa.
• In total, the three parks are set to add 373MW of energy to the country’s ailing power grid.
• The new wind turbines are expected to be operational by 2024.

Eskom said at the beginning of the year that it expects the ongoing power cuts to continue plaguing South Africa for the next two years at the least. Every day in 2023 so far has featured some stage of loadshedding, and damages caused by the ceaseless outages are beginning to mount up.

In response, South Africa’s power utility and government have spent the last few years reducing red tape for more independent power producers to contribute to the country’s power grid and perhaps began lessening the terrible impact of loadshedding.

Today, South African independent power producer Red Rocket announced that it has placed a 373MW order for three new wind turbine parks, namely the Brandvalley, Rietkloof and Wolf wind parks, to be built in the Western Cape and Eastern Cape provinces.

The order contract includes the supply and installation of 64 V150-4.5MW wind turbines, 12 V163-4.5MW wind turbines and five V162-6.2MW Enventus wind turbines. The wind parks will be serviced by Danish renewable energy group Vestas through a 15-year Active Output Management 5000 (AOM 5000) agreement.

Vestas says that the installation of the V163-4.5MW turbines at these South African wind farms will be among the first globally.

“Featuring an 18 percent increase in swept area, the V163-4.5MW has a large rotor-size-to-rating ratio resulting in a higher capacity factor, enabling up to 10 percent higher Annual Energy Production at park level compared to the V150-4.5MW,” the energy firm shares.

Vestas adds that this increases power output at lower wind speeds significantly and improves predictability and stability in production, optimising the utilisation of the wind park as well as further benefitting the energy grid.

“Red Rocket has been investing and supporting South Africa’s electricity crisis for more than a decade and with a portfolio of more than 1 000MW of wind, hydro and solar projects under development, in construction or in operation in the country, we are delighted to continue making a significant contribution to South Africa and the rest of the continent,” enthused Red Rocket CEO Matteo Brambilla.

Brambilla adds that this project will bring an R740 million community investment over 20 years through local social projects. The wind farms are expected to begin operations in 2024.

“We firmly believe that our partnership can make a significant contribution to a more reliable, affordable and sustainable energy mix in South Africa,” says Malte Meyer, Vestas Sales & Business Development senior director.

Though originated in Denmark, Vestas leads the South African wind power market with over 1.3GW of installed and under-construction capacity. The company says it wants to contribute more renewable energy to South Africa’s grid and is targeting an additional 17.7GW of wind capacity by 2030.

[Image – Provided]