Technology in renewable energy advances all the time. For South Africa it means that, as an investor, you don’t have to go by foot anymore to see if it’s worth putting money in a wind power project. Since yesterday, you now have the first verified wind atlas that tells you which spot is a winner and which isn’t.
For now, the atlas only reflects data from three coastal provinces, which is being gathered by 10 masts. The investor doesn’t have to pay anything to get this data, which is quite accurate too: the projections and verified measurements only showed a 5.6% difference and we’re talking about a very fine work, the utmost quality- and so it should be, since it cost 22 million rands ($2.9 million, 2.3 million euros).
By providing this money, the UN Development Programme and the Danish embassy are hoping that investors will really exploit the untouched potential, thus giving the respective communities a chance to overcome their precarious state.
Actually, this is all part of a general effort to bring coal reliance down to 65% by 2030, making 42% of the total come from renewable sources.
[via Physorg]
