All 34 wind farms providing power to South Africa

There are currently 34 operational wind farms adding a combined capacity of more than 3,400MW to South Africa’s electricity grid, according to the Department of Energy’s IPP Projects website and official Eskom data.

Independent Power Producers (IPPs) own all but one of these facilities. These IPPs, in turn, sell their electricity to Eskom.

The only Eskom-owned wind power station is the Sere Wind Farm near Vredendal in the Western Cape, which contributes roughly 105MW.

Wind farms consist of numerous turbines with three large blades turned by wind.

The turbines are connected to a drive shaft which turns an electric generator to produce electricity.

Each wind farm can have tens or even hundreds of turbines with outputs typically around 2–3 MW each.

The biggest wind power facility in the country is actually two adjacent farms — Khobab and Loeriesfontein 2 in the Northern Cape.

These two farms have 122 Siemens SWT-2.3-108 turbines between them, providing a maximum generating capacity of roughly 283MW.

The turbines on these farms stand 152 metres tall when measured from the ground to the tip of their blades at the highest rotation point.

There are several other large wind farms in South Africa with capacities between 135MW and 140MW.

According to Eskom’s data, the combined capacity of the wind farms connected to its grid is 3,443MW, while the Department of Energy’s list shows it being closer to 3,309MW.

The discrepancy might be due to additional capacity coming online at some wind farms that were not updated on the department’s database.

Assuming the combined capacity is 3,443MW, and each turbine contributes roughly 2–3MW, there could be anywhere between 1,148 and 1,722 turbines in the country.

Wind turbine under construction at Khobab Wind Farm.

Concentrated in the Cape

All wind farms providing power to Eskom’s grid are located in the Cape provinces, which are generally more windy than other locations in the country.

The Northern Cape’s dry and sunny weather also makes it attractive for solar power stations.

Wind farms have one major advantage over solar power — they can provide power at night, including during the evening peak electricity demand periods that put a strain on Eskom’s coal fleet.

For large-scale installations, wind power also works out to be more cost-effective than big solar farms. The latter is ideal for smaller installations closer to the targeted customer — like on a rooftop.

According to EDF Energy, wind farms operate at an average efficiency between 30–45% of their nameplate capacity.

However, they can contribute much more than this at certain times, as shown in Eskom’s publicly available renewable generation data portal.

The highest amount of wind power contributed during 2023 was 3,102.2MW, roughly 90% of the total installed capacity.

Wind farm in the Western Cape

Unfortunately, the high concentration of renewable power stations in the Cape provinces has led to Eskom running out of transmission capacity in this part of the country.

In 2022, not a single additional megawatt of wind capacity was added to the grid due to this limitation.

Eskom desperately needs to expand its transmission network — which it estimates will cost R210 billion — to enable more approved renewable IPPs to eventually connect to the national power grid.

It is hoped that spinning off Eskom’s transmission division into a separate company will help unlock the necessary investment to make this possible.

According to the energy department’s IPP database, seven additional wind farms are currently under construction in the Cape provinces, which will provide a further 780MW of capacity.

Another six wind farm projects are yet to reach financial close. If they succeed, they will add another 824MW once operational.

The table below summarises the locations and capacities of all of South Africa’s wind farms providing power to the national grid.

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