Noupoort Wind Farm has announced the completion of all 35 of its wind turbine foundations.  The final foundation was completed on 20 November, ahead of schedule.  “We can thank the 230 employees, who worked diligently to complete these foundations,” said Martina Flanagan, Project Manager of Noupoort Wind Farm.
The majority of the labour is employed from the Noupoort community, in support of local employment and upliftment.  “As part of our commitment to skills development and community development, we have provided local employees with appropriate steel fixing and concrete works training,” added Flanagan.
All material excavated for the foundations has been reused on the site, either as fill on roads or in preparation for the hard stands, situated adjacent to the foundations.  Each turbine base has a diameter of 19 metres comprising over 45 tonnes of reinforced steel and 369 m3 of 30 MPa concrete; whilst the plinth requires 23 m3 of 60 MPa concrete. This is equivalent to a total of 65 full concrete trucks per foundation.
Noupoort Wind Farm is being built on farmland surrounding a small rural community, it will help boost the local economy and have a positive impact on the community. The project is ideally located with a great wind resource and it is situated 11 km from the Eskom 132kV overhead line into which the wind farm will loop.
The 80MW wind farm is expected to generate approximately 305 000 megawatt hours of clean, renewable energy to the national grid each year.  When operating at full capacity, it is expected to supply enough green electricity to power approximately 70 000 average South African homes and avoid roughly 300 000 tonnes of carbon emissions each year when compared to traditional fossil fuel power plants.
“We are extremely pleased be on schedule and on budget,” concludes Flanagan.