Greentech Lead South Africa: Siemens Energy announced
entry to South African wind power sector by winning a new contract with
Jeffrey’s Bay wind power plant with a capacity of 138 megawatts (MW).
Siemens has now received a total of 16 orders for more
than 270 onshore wind turbines from Europe and South Africa since July 2012.
The total capacity of these projects of 730 MW is sufficient to supply 730,000
households with ecofriendly electricity, with 560 MW of this total booked in
the fourth quarter of fiscal 2012.
The total volume of this order for supply, installation
and service is more than EUR880 million.
Siemens will supply and install wind turbines, and
provide service and maintenance, for three wind farms each in UK, Denmark and
Sweden, for two projects each in Turkey and Croatia and for one project each in
Macedonia, Poland and South Africa.
For Siemens, wind is the focus area in renewable energy
sector. The company recently announced it is exiting solar energy business to concentrate
its renewable energy business on wind and hydroelectric power.
“Electricity produced from wind power will make a
significant contribution worldwide to ecofriendly power supply in the
future,” said Felix Ferlemann, CEO of the Wind Power Division of Siemens
Energy. “The orders from Europe and our market entry in South Africa
clearly demonstrate that we are continuing along the right path, also with our
onshore business.”
South Africa is emerging as a major market for renewable
energy. The South African government plans on the construction of additional
projects for a total capacity of 20,000 MW of power generation from renewable
energy sources by 2030, Siemens has now won the order for Jeffrey’s Bay for
delivery of 60 wind turbines, each with a capacity of 2.3 MW and a rotor
diameter of 101 meters.
Siemens will also service the wind turbines over an
initial period of ten years. Purchaser is a consortium consisting of Mainstream
Renewable Power Ltd., its investment partner Globeleq, Thebe Investment
Corporation and the local engineering firms Enzani Technologies and Usizo
Engineering.
In fiscal 2011, revenue from Siemens’ Environmental
Portfolio totaled about 30 billion euro, making Siemens one of the world’s
largest suppliers of ecofriendly technologies.