Publications
Partners
Babalwa Kani (30), a political science graduate from the University of Pretoria, was sitting at home without a job until an opportunity to work at the Kouga Wind Farm in the Eastern Cape presented itself.
She has come to love her job as a community liaison officer at the facility on the outskirts of Oyster Bay.
“I was one of the many graduates who were struggling to find a job. I was getting part-time jobs here and there. Once this came along, I was able to have full-time work. That was two years ago,” she says.
Kani’s colleague, Fanie du Preez (49), works as an electrical technician and manages the Kouga Wind Farm’s 32 turbines. With 10 years of experience as an electrician at Eskom, Du Preez has now worked for just over a year at the Kouga Wind Farm, one of many places in the area known for its high wind speeds, which makes it possible to generate reasonably reliable power from this natural resource.
The turbines are giant, white, 80m-tall machines with large, spinning blades. The R2 billion project began about six years ago when investors met local farmers to establish it. Now, 3 000 megawatts of electricity a year is generated at the plant, and it supplies Oyster Bay’s farming community and a number of surrounding towns with power.
“The main task of these turbines is to generate electricity from alternating current using the wind. The power is put into the system to support the grid. It does not take long to set up 32 turbines, and the amount of supply you can put into the grid is significant,” says Du Preez.
He manages a team of five and is responsible for maintaining the wind towers and assisting with environmental management at the site.
The farm has 11 employees, including environmental field inspectors Pozisa Singamba (19), Chandre Kettledas (21) and Fiona Swaartbooi (23), who visit the turbines daily to check for dead birds and assess the impact the machines have on the environment.
This is the first time any of them has been employed.
On a “good” windy day, the turbines can run up to 25km/h, and supply as much as 18MW of power to a large area, including Humansdorp, Jeffreys Bay, St Francis Bay, Oyster Bay, Cape St Francis, Tsitsikamma and surrounding farms.
The parts used to make the turbines come from a German company, which installed them and is responsible for their maintenance for the next 10 years. Du Preez believes wind farms are better for the environment than solar power plants and offer one of the best solutions to the country’s energy crisis.
“It’s green energy – you just make use of the wind and natural resources and you don’t take up too much space. You don’t change much of the ecosystem around where turbines stand,” he says.
Farming practices are undisturbed, as most of a turbine’s work is done 80m up.
“The few fatalities of birds are minimal when you compare them with fatalities caused by normal electricity lines around the country” he says.
Kani’s job as the community liaison officer is to run development programmes, which include a solar-powered computer laboratory at a local primary school and staff training at a school for the disabled.
“I’m more conscious of what it does for the country, not just in terms of giving energy but also in giving back to the communities around it. I think it’s one of the best programmes we have had,” she says.
Originally from Zwide in Port Elizabeth, Kani is now able to save for future studies and send money home to her mother.
“Working here has widened my experience. Now I am experienced as a socioeconomic-development practitioner in the renewable energy industry, which is quite a niche thing because not many people have experience in this field,” she says
