Enel Green Power has secured project financing totalling €950m for five wind farms in South Africa with a combined capacity of 700MW.
Nedbank Limited and Absa will provide money for the Nxuba, Oyster Bay, Garob, Karusa and Soetwater projects, each of which has individual capacity of 140MW.
Enel will contribute a further €230m in equity to build the wind farms.
Construction of the first project – Nxuba – will start before the end of the year, Enel said.
Work on Oyster Bay and Garob is expected to start by the first half of 2019, with construction of Soetwater and Karusa kicking off in the second half of the same year.
Nxuba is expected to be operational in the second half of 2020, Oyster Bay in the first half of 2021, while Garob, Soetwater and Karusa will come online in the second half of 2021.
Nxuba and Oyster Bay will be located in the Eastern Cape region, with the other three projects in the Northern Cape.
The five wind farms were all awarded in round four of the South African government’s Renewable Energy Independent Power Producer Procurement Programme.
Enel Green Power head Antonio Cammisecra said: “We have reached an important milestone in South Africa by achieving financial close on five major wind projects which confirm our continuing commitment to the country’s renewables sector, within a context of sustainable development.
“Enel Green Power will be supporting these processes by generating its emission-free energy in partnership with local shareholders and in cooperation with the local communities, according to our long-term vision of shared value creation.”
Meanwhile, Enel group reported earnings up 2.3% in the first half of 2018 at almost €7.9bn from just under €7.7bn last year, on back of growth in the company’s renewables sector among other things.
Revenue in the first six months of the year was on a par with last year at just over €36bn, compared with more than €36.3bn in 2017.
The company said it has connected 2.4GW of new renewables capacity in the 12 months between June 2017 and June 2018.
Renewables generation was up 10.16 terrawatt-hours from January to the end of June, of which 5.91TWh was hydro, 2.9TWh wind and 1.31TWh solar.
Clean power currently accounts for 41% of the company’s generation capacity and is expected to rise to about 50% by 2019.
Image: Enel
Enel banks 700MW in South Africa
By EBS