News Renewable Energy

821MW of New Wind capacity Installed in the Middle East and Africa in 2020

March 5, 2021

South Africa added 515 MW of new wind capacity in 2020, according to a Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC) analysis. With this addition, South Africa’s cumulative wind capacity is 2500 MW. This represents 34 per cent of the installed wind capacity installed across Africa and the Middle East.

821MW of new wind power capacity was installed in the Middle East and Africa in 2020. Apart from South Africa, other countries with notable wind addition include Senegal (103 MW), Morocco (92 MW), Jordan (52 MW), Iran (45 MW) and Egypt (13 MW). These regions made up only a small percentage of the global market as the total additions last year was about 70 GW. According to the GWEC analysis, only about 0.01% of Africa’s total wind 59,000 GW resource is utilised.

 

Despite these resources, the outlook for increased capacity additions in Africa for 2021 is not as strong. In South Africa, the medium-term outlook is positive as the South African government now confirms that the fifth REIPPPP bid window is to be launched during March and will be followed by back-to-back auctions in August and in March of 2022. Each bid window will launch tenders for 2,600 MW of new wind. Solar photovoltaic (PV) capacity will be procured in each bid window, with tenders for wind capacity development contributing up to 1600 MW of the allocation.

 

It is also expected that recent addressing of mitigating policies such as Eskom’s refusal to enter into power purchase agreements with renewables independent power producers will increase wind procurement spate.

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