Juwi's 84MW Wolf Wind Project reaches financial close
Juwi Renewable Energies announced on Wednesday, 29 March, that the 84 megawatt (MW) Wolf Wind Project in the Eastern Cape has reached financial close.
Richard Doyle, managing director, Juwi South Africa
Located two hours from Gqeberha, the project was successfully bid by Red Rocket in Round 5 of the Renewable Energy Independent Power Producers Procurement Programme (REI4P). Construction has started and the facility is projected to begin generating electricity by Q1 2024. It is the second wind project developed by Juwi to reach financial close under the REI4P - the first being the 138MW Garob Wind Project that was successful in the previous REI4P bid round and which reached commercial operation in 2021.
“Juwi is committed to developing projects that help South Africa address the energy crisis and achieve the clean energy transition, and, therefore, the progress in rolling out REI4P projects is very encouraging,” said Richard Doyle, managing director, Juwi South Africa.
“Concurrently, it is heartening to see the exponential growth in demand from the public and private sectors for large-scale renewable projects and for hybrid projects that integrate battery storage. To support this demand, we plan to initiate the development of a further combined 1GW of wind, solar and hybrid projects in 2023.”
138MW Garob Wind Project. Source: Supplied
According to Red Rocket CEO Matteo Brambilla, “The Wolf Wind Project will be generating more than 360GWh of clean electricity for the South African grid per year, offsetting 374,400 tonnes of CO2 each year and the project will bring over R200m community investment over 20 years through local social projects.”
Challenge of grid capacity
“A key barrier to bringing large projects like Wolf online is grid capacity,” said Chris Bellingham, head of project development, Juwi South Africa.
“Whilst we’re working on ways to overcome the challenges imposed on many of our projects by the Cape grid constraints, to meet the significant and growing demand for clean reliable power, we’re also actively developing a large portfolio of new and regionally diverse projects in unconstrained areas of the country’s grid.”
