The last of 61 wind turbines have been installed at Kangnas Wind Farm in South Africa. Construction Project Manager Manie Kotze confirmed the report and said that the installatiion has been completed ahead of schedule.
“The final nacelle and blades have been installed at Kangnas Wind Farm two weeks ahead of schedule and on budget. Local Northern Cape communities will have a new source of clean electricity when the wind farm enters commercial operations later this year,” said Manie Kotze.
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Kangnas Wind Farm
The Kangnas Wind Farm project is situated approximately 46 km outside of Springbok, in the Northern Cape’s Nama Khoi Municipal area, South Africa. With Concor and Concor Consortium as the contractors, the US $246m wind farm constructed on a 3 591 hectares piece of land, will consist of a total of 61 wind turbines supplied and installed by Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy, each with a capacity of 2.3 MW.
The turbines are 168m high and are equipped with a three-bladed rotor with a diameter of 108m each. Every single turbine is mounted on a 115m high tubular steel tube tower and will run at an average speed of 15rpm.
The project also includes the construction of a 12.8km long 132kV dual circuit overhead line and a substation to increase the voltage from 132kV to 220kV. It is from these installations that the electricity will be fed into the National grid in order to power up to 120,000 households in the country
The wind farm is expected to generate 140MW of clean renewable power from its sixty-one wind turbines during operations. It is also projected to get rid of approximately 550,000 tonnes of carbon emissions every year, from the day it goes live. Mainstream Renewable Power, a Sweden-based independent power producer (IPP) is in charge of the development.
This is good news for hard pressed customers. South Africa needs a lot more such new generating capacity and energy storage if it is going to significantly reduce the prospect of regular power cuts in the coming years. Certainly, there is the money around for such investment, as proven by the successful issuance of $200 million in Green Bonds recently by Standard Bank. Now the government needs to speed up the approval of the Integrated Resources Plan, so there is a regulatory framework to encourage new investment in renewables, gas to power and energy storage capacity. Plus the government needs to reform Eskom, by breaking it up into a separate independent grid company, several separate power companies and regional distribution companies.