The proposed windfarm project that could have supplied Grahamstown's electricity needs twice over has stalled, thanks to a lack of action by the municipal officials responsible for facilitating it.
The proposed windfarm project that could have supplied Grahamstown's electricity needs twice over has stalled, thanks to a lack of action by the municipal officials responsible for facilitating it.
"The municipality is not pulling their weight," said Economic Development director, Riana Meiring, expressing her frustration over the delay at a recent portfolio committee meeting. She warned that if Makana failed to get its act together, it might lose out on such projects.
Makana could be the first municipality in the country to establish a wind farm. According to a report, the proposed wind farm will be located at Waainek. "The power output of the wind farm is about 12 MW on a wind still day and 30MW on a windy day. Grahamstown uses 8 MW electricity on a warm day and 18MW on a cold day. The wind farm can thus provide power to make Makana energy stable," the report states.
Meiring said the project, like the biomass project to which the municipality committed itself last Friday, will generate renewable energy – an important step towards a green economy – one which is sustainable focuses on the creation of environmentally sustainable jobs to preserve the natural world for future generations.
The memorandum of understanding signed by the windfarm's proponents and the municipality provides for a trust that will promote the creation of employment and transfer of skills to historically disadvantaged communities.
Meiring said 26% of the profit made by the project would go to this trust. While the municipality will not be contributing financially towards the R560 million investment in building the wind farm, it has agreed to help Innowind, which manages the project together with Rhodes University, get the project off the ground. Local Economic Development director Riana Meiring said the project's backers had until 4 November to submit a 1 500-page proposal to the Department of Energy to sell the energy it generates.
She urged the technical and infrastructural services department to pull their weight to make this possible. Meiring said the department still needed to:
* Complete a cost estimate for the grid connection from Makana Municipality and the registration of servitudes for electrical cables and access roads;
* Facilitate the municipal distribution agreement, as well as the municipal direct agreement between Makana and Innowind.
This is because the government's energy procurement programme allows projects to connect into municipal networks, as opposed to connecting directly to Eskom's network.
