Sibanye-Stillwater wind farm achieves commercial production

SIBANYE-Stillwater said on Tuesday its 89MW Castle wind farm in South Africa’s Northern Cape had achieved commercial production.The facility is one of some 407MW worth of renewable projects under construction that are due to supply the miner.Castle will supply 5.5% – or 309MW – of Sibanye-Stillwater’s total energy demand and reduce the firm’s carbon dioxide equivalent emissions by 321,000 tons a year.“This milestone represents a significant advancement in providing sustainable, lower-cost power and progressing towards our goal of achieving carbon neutrality by 2040,” said Neal Froneman, CEO of Sibanye-Stillwater.The project was financed by a consortium led and co-sponsored by African Clean Energy Developments. African Infrastructure Investment Managers (AIIM) IDEAS Fund and Reatile Renewables are shareholders who will operate the wind farm through an affiliate.Rand Merchant Bank arranged the project finance.The wind farm’s shareholders are supplying the power by means of a wheeled arrangement with Eskom, the state-owned power utility and a 15-year power purchase agreement with Sibanye-Stillwater.Sibanye-Stillwater said that its “early market entry” secured grid access “avoiding current capacity constraints that limit new wind project development”.Sibanye-Stillwater expects to see some 267MW of renewable energy it is backing achieve commercial production this year. This includes 75MW from the Springbok Solar Project and 103MW from the Witberg Wind Farm which were announced in December, 2023.Up to a further 333MW is forecast to be completed by the end of 2026, including the 140MW Umsinde Emoyeni wind farm which Sibanye-Stillwater announced in May 2024.The post Sibanye-Stillwater wind farm achieves commercial production appeared first on Miningmx.Weiter zum vollständigen Artikel bei Mining.com Weiter zum vollständigen Artikel bei Mining.com