By Louise Mouton

The Hessequa Municipality has appointed a consultant to drive its wind energy pilot project.

Municipal manager Johan Jacobs said on Monday the consultant had been appointed earlier this month. Phase 1 of the project would cost R720-million, he said.

The municipality hoped to have the project up and running by October next year.

The idea to investigate augmenting Still Bay’s power supply with wind farms was mooted earlier this year, and the municipality budgeted R300 000 to take wind measurements and do an environmental impact study on a section of land it had set aside for the project.

The council gave permission for wind measurement devices to be installed on the land in Melkhoutfontein and Jacobs said the results appeared to be positive.

The municipality had also held talks with various firms which were interested in the rights to generate wind energy for the town.

Once the EIA, wind-speed measurements and geo-technical measurements had been done, an application would be submitted to the National Energy Regulator of SA to establish a wind park which can deliver 4,5 megawatts.

According to existing regulations, Hessequa will have to load the wind energy directly into the network. The tariffs for buying the energy from the municipality will be set by Nersa.

Last week, the municipality decided to form the Hessequa Energy IPP company to manage the project.

A shareholders agreement between the Hessequa Municipality, the Eden District Municipality, developers and the CVW consortium will be signed soon.

Once the area on which the wind park will be set up has been rezoned, it will be transferred to Hessequa Energy IPP.

Source: The Herald