The City of Cape Town's Mayoral Commitee, at the meeting held on 26 April 2006, gave a thumbs up to the proposed Darling Wind Farm by recommending to Council that the City enter into a Power Purchase Agreement with Darling Wind Farm (Pty) Ltd .

The Darling Wind Farm is a R70m national pilot project funded jointly by the Danish Development Aid (Danida), the Department of Minerals and Energy and the Darling Independent Power Producing Co.

The project will open up opportunities for further wind energy projects and other "green energy projects" both in the Western Cape and further afield. It will also be an important step in assisting the City to reach its target of sourcing 10% of its overall energy requirements from sustainable sources by 2020.

Once Council has considered Mayco's recommendation, the way will be open for City customers to purchase green energy. This will be marketed to "willing buyers" at an initial premium of 25c per kWh. It is expected that the demand for green energy will outstrip the 13 200 Gigawatt hours of energy that can be supplied annually by the farm (1 Gigawatt hour = 1 million kilowatt hours).

Darling Wind Farm is expected to commence generation in 2007 and the energy will be sold through RED1, the City's electricity service provider.

Issued by:
Directorate: Communication and Marketing
City of Cape Town
Email: media@capetown.gov.za
Tel: 021 400 2201
Fax: 021 957 0023

Media queries:
Brian Jones
Project Engineer: Green Energy
Cell: 084 219 4024