Swedish and SA companies team up to explore offshore wind farms

A South African and a Swedish company are teaming up with a view to developing large-scale floating wind farms off the coast of SA. The country already has several land-based wind farms that operate like giant windmills to create energy, but none offshore.

In a joint statement released in Stockholm and Cape Town, Hexicon AB and Genesis Eco-Energy Developments said the programme would be driven through a South African joint venture named GenesisHexicon.

Through the venture, Hexicon will transfer intellectual property for its patented floating multi-turbine wind platforms to the South African market and contribute to the country’s ambition to further develop its ocean-based economy.

Operation Phakisa, as it is known, focuses on unlocking the economic potential of South Africa’s oceans, which could contribute up to R177-billion to the GDP by 2033. Offshore energy generation would be only a part of a wider programme that seeks to develop shipping, aquaculture, marine tourism, and offshore oil and gas exploration, among others.

Right time to develop SA’s offshore wind energy market

“As one of South Africa’s pioneering wind energy development companies, the logical progression for Genesis will be to focus offshore along South Africa’s coastline, which has abundant unexplored resources,” said Davin Chown, MD of Genesis Eco-Energy Developments.

“This is an ideal opportunity to explore the deployment of this innovative floating wind technology from Hexicon. Now is the right time to start to develop the South African offshore wind energy market and contribute to Operation Phakisa.”

SA in top 10 long-term markets for this type of energy

Hexicon CEO Henrik Baltscheffsky described South Africa as one of the top 10 long-term markets globally for the deployment of deep-water floating wind projects.

The joint statement referred to a recent World Bank report, which calculated the technical potential for offshore wind in Brazil, India, Morocco, the Philippines, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Turkey and Vietnam to be roughly 3.1 terawatts.

This equates to two or about three times the installed electricity generation capacity of all 28 European Union countries.

Offshore wind facilities are increasingly important

In its most recent Global Wind Report, the Global Wind Energy Council said that offshore wind was playing an increasingly important role, with the sector installing a record 6.1 GW in 2019, representing a record 10% share of all new wind installations during the year. One gigawatt (GW) is equal to1 000 megawatts (MW) of electricity.

According to the Department of Energy, South Africa’s total domestic electricity generation capacity is 51 309 megawatts (MW) from all sources. Approximately 91.2% comes from thermal power stations and 8.8% is generated from renewable energy sources.