Industry Pioneers Change the West Coast Landscape

Industry Pioneers Change the West Coast Landscape

Darling Wind Farm, situated along the beautiful West Coast of the Western Cape, is the country’s first wind farm. Roughly 70 kilometers from Cape Town, this 5MW plant, is also the country’s smallest power generator.

What many of us don’t recall is that this wind farm was declared a National Demonstration project, in June 2000, by the Minister of Minerals and Energy at the time. It stands as an example of public-private partnerships in the establishment of electricity generation, which we now enter into under the REI4P.

Darling Wind Farm is the country’s 1st grid connected, independent wind energy power-generating facility developed in South Africa with the financial assistance from the Danish government through Danida, its funding agency, a loan from the Development Bank of Southern Africa and investment by the Central Energy Fund and the Darling Independent Power Producer.

Since then an additional two projects have been added along this windy stretch of arid coast, Umoya Energy Wind Farm (66.6MW); and West Coast 1 (99.8MW) that is situated further up the coast.