“South Africa is at the beginning of a great development as the country offers great potential for renewable energies,” explains Marie-Luise Pörtner, Managing Director of juwi Wind GmbH. “We want to establish juwi as a project developer with comprehensive services, who supervises projects throughout the entire development process – from acquisition to planning, financing, construction, operation and management.”
At the moment, juwi is focusing on wind energy in South Africa, with plans to construct wind farms with a total output of 200 to 300 megawatts over the next nine years. “But that is only the beginning,” it says, highlighting that South Africa offers excellent conditions for wind energy generation: a huge stock of suitable land and (with a guaranteed feed-in tariff) excellent legal conditions.
4.5 GW of wind by 2019
In addition, the South African government has set itself ambitious targets. It plans to construct 4,500 megawatts by 2019. “The Government follows a comprehensive energy strategy that combines different renewable energy sources. That matches what juwi offers as we are active in all areas of renewable energy. In the longer term, we plan to construct solar projects in South Africa as well“, adds Michael Böhm, Managing Director of juwi Renewable Energies (Pty) Ltd.
Chile is another new and promising market for the juwi group, through its subsidiary juwi Energías Renovables de Chile Limitada.”Chile offers excellent wind conditions. In addition, it has great potential for solar power“, says Alejandro Lobo-Guerrero Rodríguez, managing director of project development Latin America. “Furthermore, Chile is a country with stable political conditions that is open to renewable energies.”
Since its foundation, juwi Energías Renovables de Chile Limitada has worked extensively on wind project acquisition and new project possibilities in the region. First wind measurements in the north of the country are going to start shortly.
Tapping the desert’s riches
In the field of solar energy, the juwi group was involved as project developer with two research projects in the Atacama Desert. Two solar plants with a total output of six kilowatt were installed in the coastal town Antofagasta and in the mountain town San Pedro de Atacama in 2010.
The plants use polycrystalline as well as mono crystalline modules and were constructed in cooperation with the Centre for the Development of Energy based at the University of Antofagasta. Measuring instruments document the energy production under complicated conditions. “In the Tropic of Capricorn, the modules are exposed to sandstorms, magnetic dust and a highly corrosive atmosphere“, explains Diego Lobo-Guerrero Rodríguez, project manager juwi Solar GmbH. Each plant produces enough energy to cover the annuals needs of twelve Chilean households.
juwi Solar donates the plants and part of the produced energy to the University of Antafogaste. The output of the second solar power plant is delivered free-of charge to the school San Pedro de Atacama, upon whose roof one of the plants is fixed.
juwi’s corporate slogan is “anything is possible”, and with the efforts this company is making to ramp up renewable energy capacity in these two emerging markets, one can safely say that it certainly is.
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