Wind

For thousands of years wind energy has been harnessed by farmers in a form of windmills, using the energy derived from wind to grind wheat and pump water. The same wind energy today can be harnessed to produce electricity by making use of wind turbines.

The amount of energy that can be extracted from the wind depends on its speed. The higher the wind speed, the more energy can be harnessed to generate electricity on a large scale. However, this requires large tracts of land to install enough wind turbines or generators, which are also noisy.

The first large scale wind farm in South Africa became operational in 2014, and others are in planning and construction stages. Most of these are earmarked for locations along the Eastern Cape coastline. Eskom has constructed one small scale prototype windfarm at Klipheuwel in the Western Cape and another demonstrator site is near Darling with phase 1 completed.

A list of wind farms in south africa can be obtained from Wikipedia

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