Wind energy atlas in South Africa

The Department of Energy in collaboration with Denmark, the United Nations Development Programme and South African National Energy Development Institute (Sanedi) have launched the wind power atlas in South Africa.

The atlas gives a high-definition map of potential sites for wind turbines and give investors and independent power producers ‘leapfrog’ data that will help identify and access potential wind farm sites in South Africa.

The primary objective of Wind Atlas South Africa (Wasa) is to develop and produce numerical wind-atlas methods and develop capacity to enable the planning of large-scale exploitation of wind power in South Africa, including dedicated wind resource assessment and siting tools for planning purposes

The Wasa is being achieved through six work packages, ranging from physical wind measurements used to gauge and verify modelling to the application thereof with tools, guides and databases.