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The Sere Wind Farm near Vredendal in the Western Cape, Eskom’s first utility-scale renewable energy project with a generating capacity of 100MW, has been feeding power into the national grid since the first wind turbines were energised during October 2014.

Sere was placed into commercial operation on 31 March 2015. The project was completed on time and within budget, with a safety record in line with Eskom’s Zero Harm policy, and without any environmental legal contraventions or incidents of industrial action – truly a significant achievement!

The first seven wind turbines were synchronised to the grid on 10 October 2014, with the last of the 46 turbines being energised in December 2014. Although Sere has been feeding available power into the grid since October 2014, it achieved the target nominal generating capacity of 100MW on 27 January 2015.

Sere demonstrates our commitment to renewable energy, diversifying our energy mix and reducing our carbon footprint. The Sere plant contributes to saving nearly 6-million tons of greenhouse gas emissions over its 20 years expected operating life, with average annual energy production of about 298 000 MWh, enough to supply about 124 000 standard homes.

Besides Sere, development work continues on the photovoltaic (PV) rollout at Eskom’s existing administration buildings, power stations and transmission substations, and also on solar augmentation where existing power stations are hybridised with solar thermal energy. Project Ilanga, Eskom’s PV project, is expected to add 150MWp by 2017/18, of which 2.35MWp has been installed.

Issued by Eskom