
The 100MW of wind power are generated from 40 Nordex 2.5MW turbines.
Says Anne Henschel, Managing Director of Nordex South Africa – the supplier of the wind turbines to the Dorper Wind Farm: “We are proud to have achieved this final milestone of grid compliance and hand-over to the client at Dorper Wind Farm. The power station is connected to the national electricity grid and is supporting electricity capacity with green, sustainable energy.”
The Dorper Wind Farm is one of four turn-key projects awarded to Nordex as part of the REIPPPP (Renewable Energy Independent Power Producer Procurement Programme). This project is jointly led by Rainmaker Energy and Sumitomo. Nordex is the main EPC (Engineering Procurement and Construction) contractor with a 10-year service, operation and maintenance agreement already in place with Dorper Wind Farm.
The high voltage electrical company, Conco, a Nordex sub-contractor, built both parts to the substation – the Eskom switching yard and the IPP (Independent Power Producer) substation, designed to counterbalance any redundancy in the distribution of power. Nordex has played a pivotal role in the implementation process of both the substation and switching yard, ensuring that the energy produced by their turbines is efficiently fed into the grid with minimal loss/waste.
Says Anne: “The combination of our latest wind turbine technology together with our experience and expertise in developing and building wind farms all around the world, has ensured that we meet Eskom’s criteria to be certified as grid compliant. We energised the Eskom switching yard portion first, thereby allowing Eskom to ‘loop in and out’ of the substation. This allowed for an optimal testing environment and final successful connection of the substation to Eskom and its customers.”
As one of the world’s leading wind power companies, Nordex is committed to partnering with South African government departments, Eskom, local businesses, the African renewable energy sector and communities to support the growth of green and sustainable energy production in South Africa, to the benefit of all.