The sod is turned for another Eastern Cape wind farm project

01 Feb 2016 | Admin Author

The first sod was turned for another wind farm in the Eastern Cape.

Cennergi, a joint venture between Exxaro and Tata Power, celebrated the start of construction at its more than R3-billion Amakhala Emoyeni Wind Farm project between Bedford and Cookhouse.

CEO, Thomas Garner, says they'll be installing 56 N-17 Nordex turbines which will produce 134.4 mega watts of wind energy for the national electricity grid, by mid 2016.

The wind farm will span five farms in the Bedford / Cookhouse area.

Garner says local communities will benefit over the 20-year life span of the wind farm.

"We've got two community trusts, the Bedford and Cookhouse community trusts respectively earning 2.5% of the equity of the wind farm and its free carry. So it's actually 5% of the wind farm is owned by the local communities."

Garner told Algoa FM News that those local communities will benefit further through socio-economic programmes funded from the wind farm revenue.

"We will spend 2.1% of the revenue of the wind farm on socio- economic development and enterprise development, it's around R30 000 a day for 20 years." says Garner.