On behalf of BMZ, GTZ implemented in cooperation with the Western Cape Department of Environmental Affairs and Development Planning (DEA&DP) and the power utility Eskom a project to promote wind energy in the Western Cape Province, South Africa. Aim of the project, which ran from April 2008 to November 2009, was assisting the provincial government in achieving its ambitious renewable energy targets (15 percent by 2014).

Electricity supplies in South Africa rely almost entirely on the use of domestic coal resources. Due to rapidly rising electricity consumption, serious power outages are becoming ever more frequent. The Western Cape region is particularly badly affected. The good news is that the province has excellent, largely unexploited wind energy potential.

In order to harness this potential as well as to take action on climate change and improve the security of supply, the project consisted of the following components:

• improve the framework conditions for renewable energy in the province
• compile a grid study
• conduct training on technical, economic and regulatory aspects of the use of wind energy
• establish professional networks across the region

Apart from DEA&DP, project partners include the Central Energy Fund (CEF) and the state electricity provider ESKOM.

The grid study was compiled in collaboration with the power utility Eskom and examined, among other things, the impact of feeding 2,800 MW of wind energy into the South African transmission grid. It revealed that the existing grid infrastructure is excellently suited to the integration of wind energy and indicated that feeding in the quantities envisaged in the study would not present any problems.

A Regional Regulatory Action Plan was elaborated to improve the framework conditions for renewable energy. In addition to a guide for investors and project developers, the study contains detailed proposals for instruments aimed at promoting the use of renewable energy at provincial and national level. Shortly after the project was concluded, the provincial government of the Western Cape announced that it was implementing three of the instruments described in the study. High-ranking representatives of the provincial government undertook a study tour to obtain information about the German Renewable Energy Sources Act (EEG), which provided momentum in the drive to introduce the national feed-in tariff in March 2009.