Wind Farms: Huge Potential In South Africa, Big Opportunity For Farmers

Fickle power supply and ever-increasing tariffs are spurring South Africa’s agriculture sector to look at alternative sources of electricity. Jacobus Treurnich, the land rights manager of G7 Renewable Energies, spoke to Jeandré van der Walt about wind farms and the opportunities that farmers will have to rent out their land for wind-generated power.

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HOW DO WIND FARMS WORK?

A wind farm consists of a collection of wind turbines that generate electricity when wind rotates their blades. The longer the turbine blades, the more energy can be generated. The wind farm also consists of associated infrastructure such as access roads, an onsite substation, an overhead power line to connect the facility to the national grid, and construction-related infrastructure.

The turbines are connected to one another via underground cabling or overhead lower-voltage power lines. The electricity produced is ‘collected’ at a central substation from where it is fed into the national electricity grid owned by Eskom. Eskom then distributes the electricity and sells it to end-users. Wind farm projects generally refer to large-scale wind farming activities spread over very large areas, typically encompassing many properties.

DOES WIND FARMING HOLD SIGNIFICANT POTENTIAL IN SOUTH AFRICA?

The country has significant wind resources and sufficient open land to produce wind power.

A study by the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research found that approximately 80% of South Africa’s land mass has enough wind for economically viable wind farms with an average capacity factor above 30%. This figure refers to how often the facility will generate electricity at the maximum designed capacity; no wind farm will be able to have all of its turbines turning at 100% all the time. South Africa’s average capacity factor is significant compared with that of Europe’s wind fleet, which is 24%. This implies vast development opportunities for wind in South Africa.

WHAT ARE THE BENEFITS OF WIND ENERGY?

First, wind farms produce clean energy, and have a vital role to play in the global push to avoid impending climate disaster. For every MWh produced with wind energy instead of coal, we avoid 1t of carbon-dioxide emissions.