With more than a decade of onshore wind projects proving the technology’s viability, one has to wonder why South Africa would consider starting an offshore wind programme. Panelist Chris Lloyd, Offshore Wind Advisor at the World Bank, said preliminary findings of a study into building wind farms at sea suggest that South Africa has an ”excellent opportunity to deploy offshore wind at scale.”Once the report is released, a stakeholder engagement period will commence to socialise the study findings and key aspects of the next steps. The geographic spatial analysis identified opportunities to create around 95GW of offshore wind projects. South Africa and Morocco have greatest offshore wind energy potential in AfricaIf a low-growth scenario of setting up a few projects with no government planning is followed, that could eventually result in around 5GW of offshore wind energy projects by 2050. Andretta Tsebe, PetroSA’s General Manager responsible for gas-to-power and green energy projects, explained that offshore wind and offshore gas projects tend to require the same infrastructure at sea.

Source: The North Africa Journal October 10, 2024 13:04 UTC