- Roggeveld wind farm commences commercial operations.
- The electricity will be fed into the national grid.
A new renewable energy facility is set to come online in South Africa as the Roggeveld wind farm begins commercial operations. The plant is located 20 km north of the town of Matjiesfontein, which straddles the Northern and Western Cape provinces. It consists of 47 turbines supplied and installed by Nordex, a company based in Rostock, Germany.
The turbines can deliver 147MW of power, or an annual capacity of 610GWh, enough to power 49,200 South African homes. Building Energy owns the wind farm. The Red Rocket subsidiary took over the concession from G7 Renewable Energies. The Cape Town, South Africa-based independent power producer (IPP) was awarded the concession in 2015 as part of the 4th round of the Renewable Energy Independent Power Producer Procurement Program (REIPPP) tender.
The Roggeveld wind project required an investment of 4.4 billion South African Rand (over $284 million). Financing for the project was completed in 2018, with participation from the Development Bank of South Africa (DBSA), Rand Merchant Bank (RMB), and Old Mutual. In addition, building Energy is selling the electricity generated by the Roggeveld wind farm to South African state-owned utility Eskom under a 20-year power purchase agreement (PPA) signed in 2018.