With the Darling Wind project’s second phase currently on hold in South Africa due to the economic meltdown, funding, and continuing negotiations, the country continues to up its search to meet the energy demand – particularly as the 2010 World Cup quickly approaches.
Hermann Oelsner oversaw the commercial launch of the Darling Wind Farm to produce electricity for Cape Town city council. And while he is one of wind energy’s biggest advocates, he admits that wind energy does not produce that much; however, it could prove pivotal to helping alleviate the country’s ongoing power crisis. "We have a fantastic wind regime, it’s sparsely populated and where we want to build wind farms is very poor farmland – and even if there’s good farmland beneath, we only use 1% of the ground so you can carry on with your farming."
He continued, "It’s cheaper to build wind farms here than in Europe where the utilities are battling to reduce their CO2 [carbon] footprint."
Mohsin Seedat, who is responsible for nuclear, gas, and renewable projects at Eskom, agrees there is a lot of interest in the renewable energy market. He says many firms are looking at a variety of projects from wind and solar to waste-to-energy schemes although solar might be the best option for the power utility.
Large solar projects are in their infancy as the market waits to see how solar schemes being pioneered in Spain with attractive feed-in tariffs work out, he said.
On a smaller scale, Eskom has been encouraging consumers to buy solar water heaters instead of electric geysers. "That’s been working quite successfully for a year and a bit and it’s growing immensely – the consumer buys a solar water heater from an accredited supplier and then receives a rebate from Eskom of about a fifth of the purchase price," Seedat said.