Company Announcement - A significant achievement was reached on February 24th, 2015, when Financial Close was concluded with Nedbank and the Industrial Development Corporation, for the financed portion of the funding required for the Longyuan Mulilo De Aar Wind Energy Facilities with a total installed capacity of 244.5MW.
Longyuan South Africa Renewables, the main developer of the two projects, was registered on March 17, 2011. The company is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the China Longyuan Power Group Corporation Limited (www.clypg.com.cn/eng), which was founded in 1993 and is the largest wind power developer in China and Asia, and the second largest in the world. By the end of 2014, China Longyuan had an installed wind power capacity of 14,5GW. The Group established companies and offices in North America, South Africa and Australia, and currently owns and operates a 100MW Wind Energy facility in Canada.
The Longyuan Mulilo consortium won the two De Aar projects in Window three of the Department of Energy’s Independent Power Producers Program and this will require a total investment of around R5 billion.
Longyuan Engineering South Africa, of which 30% shares is held by a local Community Education Trust, and also a subsidiary of China Longyuan, will design and construct the Wind Energy Facilities with the assistance of local Consultants and Contractors. The wind turbine generators will be supplied from China by Guodian United Power Corporation. Construction will commence towards the third quarter of 2015, and achieve Scheduled Commercial Operation by the last quarter of 2017, after which the facilities can generate around 620,900 MWh of green energy and reduce around 600,000 tons of CO² emission every year.
The development of the two projects will bring social and economic benefits and employment opportunities to the Northern Cape Province. China Longyuan also has its own professional training facility which will facilitate technical knowledge transfer to South African Employees.
The two De Aar wind projects were also awarded “Excellent Projects in 2014” by the South African Wind Energy Association during the WINDABA in November 2014.