280m turbines, 600km of roads, and more battery power than Medupi and Kusile combined — South Africa’s first 1GW wind farm

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30-09-2025
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South Africa could get its first renewable power plant with a peak electricity output of up to one gigawatt (1,000 megawatts) within four years.

The R30-billion Carissa Wind Energy Facility (WEF), planned for construction about 31km south of Beaufort West in the Western Cape, secured environmental authorisation in early September 2025.

The facility is being developed by Spanish firm AMDA Energía for UK-based Hive Energy, which plans to use the plant to power its R105-billion Coega Green Ammonia Project at the Port of Ngqura.

The facility aims to produce one million tonnes of ammonia per year by 2029, much of which will be exported to Asia and Europe. As it stands, the largest capacity for a single wind farm in South Africa is 147MW.

Three farms currently share the crown of largest in the country — Karusa, Roggeveld, and Soetwater. These farms have 35 to 41 turbines with capacities ranging from 3.15MW to 4.2MW.

The Carissa WEF will boast 154 turbines, each with a capacity exceeding 6MW, spread across roughly 41,000 hectares on 10 farms. The turbines themselves will cover about 300 hectares.

While the precise turbine model that will be used is unclear, the largest onshore wind farm turbine currently in commercial operation globally is the Nordex N163/6.X, which has a peak generation of 6.8MW.

The facility’s Environmental Impact Assessment report said that the maximum height of the turbines at the highest point of rotation will be 280 metres.

This is over 50 metres higher than the tallest building in South Africa — the Leonardo Hotel in Sandton.

The maximum rotor diameter will be 200 metres, assuming a blade length up to 100 metres, while the height of the turbines’ hubs will be up to 180 metres above the ground.

The map below shows the layout of the Carissa WEF, which is scheduled for commercial operation by 2029.

Screenshot

Biggest battery system in South Africa

The WEF will be paired with a five-hectare battery energy storage system (BESS) with up to 10,000MWh capacity from lithium-ion, vanadium flow, or zinc-ion batteries.

This will make it the largest battery system in the country, trumping the 1,140Wh of lithium-ion capacity at the Kenhardt hybrid plant and 1,200MWh of thermal storage at Redstone CSP.

While not directly comparable, Eskom’s two newest power stations — Medupi and Kusile have a combined output of 9,600MW.

If the BESS had inverter capacity to match, it would be able to supply the equivalent of those two plants’ peak power for more than an hour.

Additional infrastructure will include main access roads up to 100km and internal roads up to 500km.

The authorisation is the last required environmental impact assessment report on 3,300MW of renewable energy assets that Hive Hydrogen plans to power for its green ammonia project.

The ammonia plant will also get electricity from 1,430MW of distributed solar power farms.

South Africa currently has less than 5,000MW of wind power, while the integrated resource plan envisions that nearly 18,000MW of capacity will be installed by 2030.

However, projects have stagnated in recent years as Eskom’s transmission grid has reached its maximum capacity in the Cape provinces.

While Independent Power Producers (IPPs) are looking to other provinces for solar power, wind resources and flat open space for turbines are far better in the Cape region.

Hive Hydrogen said the grid upgrades across the greater project — including substation expansions — will also open up another 20,000MW of capacity for utility-scale power plants.

Carissa WEF is not the only major planned to come online in the next few years. Red Rocket’s Overberg Wind Farm 12km outside Swellendam in the Western Cape will have a capacity of 400MW.

Its energy will be sold to Discovery Green for use by Impala Platinum, Foress Real Estate Investments, and Balwin Properties through wheeling agreements.

Construction is already underway on this plant, with commercial operation expected by early 2027.