Enel, through its renewables subsidiary Enel Green Power, has started building a wind farm in South Africa. This is the 140 MW Garob park, near Copperton, a city that is part of the local municipality of Siyathemba, in the Northern Cape province. This is the group's fifth wind farm in the country and will require an investment of over 200 million euros, the group said in a statement.
“With the start of construction of Garob, we have reached another important milestone in South Africa, just a few weeks after the start of work on the Oyster Bay wind farm,” commented Antonio Cammisecra, head of Enel Green Power.
Garob is the third renewable plant that Enel Green Power has started building since the beginning of 2019, in line with the company's investment program in the country. The other projects are the 140 MW Nxuba and Oyster Bay wind farms. Including the latter two, EGP's overall capacity under construction in South Africa is 420 MW.
Once the plant is fully operational, which is expected within the first half of 2021, the 46 wind turbines of Garob should produce around 573 GWh a year, avoiding the emission of around 600 tons of CO into the atmosphere2.
The Garob wind farm, the first the Group is building in the Northern Cape province, is located in an area that is rapidly establishing itself as a renewables hub in South Africa thanks to the growing number of solar and wind farms in the region. Concrete towers will be built in Garob to replace the normal prefabricated steel towers, boosting local employment during the construction phases.
When the wind farm goes online, Enel Green Power will launch Enterprise Development (ED) initiatives in nearby communities, including the Herbal Lean Incubation Program, which offers mentoring and support services to technology startups agro, bio and food.
