Next month an environmental impact assessment (EIA) is due to start for a R1.5 billion 70MW wind farm located near Darling in the Western Cape. Langefontein farm, near Darling that was once an apartheid-era military radio station is the chosen site near the existing 5,2-MW Darling wind farm, which was commissioned in May last year.

Oelsner Group CEO Hermann Oelsner are pushing the project forward, they won the tender for the property in 2004 and have since secured the entire R1.5-billion funding from a Europe-based utility, which cannot be named at this point.

“The European utility will be financing the project in order to support green energy and to reduce its carbon dioxide emissions,” explains Oelsner.
“By funding such a project, the European utility will be able to claim carbon credits once the wind farm is operational.”
The plan so far is to errect twenty-eight 2,5-MW turbines which will generate the anticipated 70 MW.

Apart from undertaking an EIA for the 70-MW wind energy project, Oelsner confides that his company is also investigating a 50-MW concentrating solar thermal power (CSP) project on the same property.
This project is still at an early stage of development, however, Oelsner expects that an EIA
for that project will start this year.