Construction work has commenced on a 140MW wind farm in South Africa after developers reached financial close on the project.
African Clean Energy Developments (ACED) and Energy Infrastructure Management Services (EIMS Africa) have reached financial close on the Ishwati Emoyeni wind farm with NOA Group Trading.
The project was led, co-sponsored and developed by ACED, with the African Infrastructure Investment Managers’ IDEAS Fund and Reatile as shareholders.
The IDEAS Fund is one of South Africa’s largest domestic infrastructure equity funds.
The Ishwati Emoyeni Wind Farm and the ACED-EIMS-IDEAS-Reatile generation consortium was the first sizeable renewable energy project to sign a PPA (Power Purchase Agreement) with renewable energy aggregator, NOA.
NOA received its trading licence from Nersa (National Energy Regulator of South Africa) on January 31, enabling the business to buy all the renewable energy generated by the wind farm.
Expected to start generating electricity in 2026, the project comprises 32 Vestas 4.5MW wind turbines.
It is adjacent to two of the consortium’s other projects of the same size, the Umsinde Emoyeni and Khangela Emoyeni wind farms.
“This marks the first large-scale renewable project in South Africa to reach financial close with an energy trader as the offtaker,” said NOA Group chief executive Karel Cornelissen.
Chief executive of ACED James Cumming added: “We’re delighted to have closed and commenced construction on this complex and pioneering project – the first trader offtake project at scale.
“It’s the long-term PPAs we sign, such as that with NOA here, that bring these projects to life.
“We are grateful for the opportunity to serve NOA, so that they can in turn do so for their growing list of energy customers, all the while driving sustainable development and job creation – at the site locally, and where the renewable energy is used.”
ACED will continue to provide construction management services, whilst EIMS Africa will act as the operations phase management services provider to the project.
The ACED and EIMS Africa teams have brought more than 600MW of hydro, wind and solar projects to financial close and construction in the last 24 months.