MACS helps bring wind power to Darling

THE SMALL town of Darling is taking the lead in wind power generation, with a little help from Maritime Carrier Shipping (MACS). Four wind turbines have been imported from Europe, at a cost of more than R70 million, arriving in the Mother City port recently aboard the MACS vessels Stellenbosch and Green Cape. The Darling wind farm project, a private initiative, has four windmills capable of producing 13.5 gigawatt hours a year, sufficient to supply electricity to the whole town of Darling in the Western Cape. This ‘green power’ plant only takes a year to build, in contrast to constructing a nuclear power plant. “It would take 1 000 of these wind turbines to replace the output of the Koeberg nuclear power station (outside Cape Town) so, given the strong Cape winds, it should definitely be on the power agenda.” An experimental ‘green’ Eskom pilot project implemented at Klipheuwel can provide power for 2 500 homes. Once the turbines had been off-loaded in Cape Town, Vanguard Shipping, Johannesburg took charge of delivery and coordinated erection at Darling, situated near Malmesbury.