On 10 April, African Clean Energy Developments (ACED), Energy Infrastructure Management Services Africa (EIMS Africa) and Sibanye-Stillwater announced that the 89-megawatt (MW) Castle Wind Farm (Castle), a facility dedicated to supplying renewable energy to Sibanye-Stillwater’s South African operations, has achieved commercial operation.  This marks a milestone for ACED, Sibanye-Stillwater and for the country’s private renewable energy sector, with Castle being the largest private-offtake wind farm in operation in South Africa to date. 

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Neal Froneman, outgoing CEO of Sibanye-Stillwater said, “This milestone represents a significant advancement in providing sustainable, lower-cost power and progressing towards our goal of achieving carbon neutrality by 2040. We thank the project consortium for effectively managing the construction and start-up, ensuring our secured offtake. We will continue to drive the delivery of the balance of our renewable energy projects as a key element of our group strategy.”

Located near De Aar in the Northern Cape, the project benefits from some of SA’s best wind resources and direct access to the main transmission corridor connecting the Cape provinces to the industrial northeast of South Africa. Castle will supply Sibanye’s SA operations via a wheeling agreement with Eskom. ACED and Sibanye-Stillwater’s early market entry secured vital grid access, avoiding current capacity constraints that limit new wind project development.

The Castle consortium is led and co-sponsored by ACED, with African Infrastructure Investment Managers (AIIM) IDEAS Fund and Reatile Renewables as shareholders. AIIM is a division of Old Mutual Alternative Investments (OMAI), and its IDEAS Fund is one of South Africa’s largest domestic infrastructure equity funds. Reatile Renewables is a successful strategic empowerment investor in renewables. ACED and AIIM affiliate, EIMS Africa will now manage the project during operations. Rand Merchant Bank (RMB), a division of FirstRand Bank Limited, is the sole mandated lead arranger for the project.

 

Key project info includes:

  • Power Purchase Agreement Term: 15 years
  • 16x Gold Wind turbines, with a 6MW rated power for each, and a 110m hub height, meaning the turbines will stand 192.5m high at tip height.
  • Construction period of 22 months with Adenco Construction conducting electrical balance of plant and CSV Construction on civil engineering.
  • The project interconnects with the Eskom Hydra Main Transmission Substation, 25km away from the project site.
  • Castle provides Sibanye with cost saving relative to prevailing Eskom utility rates, resulting in a significant cost saving for their SA operations.
  • Annual renewable energy supply of 309GWh (5.5% of Sibanye-Stillwater’s energy demand in South Africa).
  • Reduction of 321 000t CO2e annually (5.0% of group scope 1 and 2 emissions) and mitigation of potential indirect associated carbon tax liabilities.
  • Local jobs and economic development opportunities created around the project site.
  • Equivalent to powering circa 120 000 homes.

Castle is one of two renewable energy projects that the ACED consortium and Sibanye are executing together, with the 140MW Umsinde Emoyeni Wind Farm (announced on the 30 May 2024) being the other and is due to reach commercial operation in late 2026.

James Cumming, CEO of ACED explains, “We are pleased to bring Castle Wind Farm into operation for Sibanye and the project shareholders. Projects such as these require huge amounts of collaboration and cooperation between a vast array of stakeholders, and we are very grateful for the role played by all. Benefits extend way beyond ‘Buyer and Seller’, with renewables projects driving sustainable economic growth on a macro and micro level for South Africa, and we are very proud of this.

“Reaching COD is a testament to the hard work and dedication of the extended teams of Sibanye-Stillwater, our partners AIIM, ACED and EIMS Africa as well as our appointed contractors. We could not have done it without their commitment and expertise. We are proud to be playing our role in South Africa’s energy transition and delivering sustainable energy solutions for the country,” notes Sunette Smith, Business Development executive of Reatile Group.

This project brings the total delivery by the ACED and EIMS Africa teams to over 600MW of hydro, wind and solar projects to financial close and construction in the last 24 months, enhancing the consortium’s collective drive to be a leader in renewable energy development and operation in South Africa and across the continent. This builds on over a gigawatt of projects they have already developed and operate via the South African Renewable Energy Independent Power Producer Procurement Programme (REIPPPP).

Source: supplied by African Clean Energy Developments and EIMS Africa