Loeriesfontein Wind Farm has announced that it has achieved over a million hours without a single lost-time-incident, on the 31 October 2016, which is a health and safety highlight in this renewable energy project’s construction programme. It is one of the country’s largest wind farms, and considering the sheer scale of the project, the multiple level of activities and the complexities involved, it is an impressive achievement.

Approximately 70% of the workforce come from the Loeriesfontein community and have directly benefitted from the skills development programmes.  This work experience will no doubt benefit Khobab Wind Farm, the adjacent wind farm, which is also currently under construction.

“We believe that we have been able to achieve this major milestone of 1 021 962 hours without a lost time incident, due to the training and development initiatives that our local workforce has undergone over the last 18 months,” said Leo Quinn, Project Manager of Loeriesfontein Wind Farm.

Loeriesfontein Wind Farm has completed the lifting of 26 wind turbine generators as of 2 November 2016, achieving an average of 2.5 WTG liftings per week, often with two simultaneous liftings underway.  The next major construction milestone will be the arrival of the main transformer and the energisation of the substation.

This ZAR3.5 billion Wind Farm is expected to start supplying electricity to the national grid by end-2017, as part of the third round of the Renewable Energy Independent Power Producer Procurement Programme.

When operating at full capacity, the Loeriesfontein Wind Farm will generate approximately 563,500 MWh of clean renewable energy per year; this is expected to supply electricity to power up to 120 000 South African homes.

2 November 2016