Coal miner begins constructing South Africa’s greatest wind farm

Coal producer Seriti Assets has began constructing South Africa’s largest wind farm, because the nation’s mining trade seeks to chop its reliance on troubled state-owned energy utility Eskom.

South Africa plans to transition to cleaner-energy sources from probably the most polluting fossil gas, however faces the extra problem of cushioning the blow to communities depending on coal mines for jobs. The 155-megawatt wind farm, 20 kilometers (12 miles) from Seriti’s New Denmark mine, will assist easy that transformation because it creates as many as 800 jobs, in response to the corporate’s head of inexperienced power, Peter Venn.

Whereas grid capability is saturated in lots of components of the nation, the coal-rich province of Mpumalanga has a surplus of connections that may be exploited by a mining sector. The brand new wind farm needs to be accomplished within the first quarter of 2026, serving to to plug a shortfall as Eskom’s ageing coal-fired crops wrestle to satisfy demand.

“There are going to be loads of initiatives” to provide energy for mines within the space, Seriti Inexperienced Chief Government Officer Venn mentioned in an interview on the Indaba mining convention in Cape City.

The Seriti unit plans to construct infrastructure able to offering 900 megawatts of inexperienced power over the following few years.

Seriti shareholders Commonplace Financial institution and Rand Service provider Financial institution will fund the preliminary wind mission, with the corporate “leveraging its stability sheet” to start out development in December and order key gear equivalent to transformers, Venn mentioned.

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