Almost a year ago, South Africa’s largest coal supplier announced plans to shore up the country’s energy supply by 5,000 MW of power within eight years with half of the supply generated from coal and the rest via RE (South Africa’s Exxaro Plans to Increase Power Supply).
The company has announced plans to install the first of three anemometry masts on January 19 on South Africa’s west coast, according to a company official. The masts would obtain on-site wind data to evaluate the wind resource potential at Brand-se-baai, where Exxaro was investigating the feasibility of constructing a 100-MW wind farm.
Exxaro Growth Carbon and Energy development manager Ugeshree Thakurpersad told Mining Weekly Online that construction activities for the first 80-m mast would start from January 19. The remaining two masts, a 70-meter mast and a 60-meter mast, would be installed in March. Measurements would need to be taken for a minimum of one-year; however, the 80-meter mast would remain on site for some 20 years to conduct measurements over this duration.
The company has also been involved in the Tsitsikamma Community Wind Farm project in the Eastern Cape. The R1-billion project, currently in the feasibility study phase, is expected to generate 40 MW of wind power by 2013.