Cape Town – Manufacturing localisation of wind turbines is essential to balance the overall carbon footprint of the wind energy sector, says Fossil Free SA’s David le Page.
Talking to Fin24 during a tour of a 90MW wind farm 150km north of Cape Town, Le Page said while 100% of the material used to build the Wind Farm 1 was sourced from China, more localisation was now occurring.
“Once you have localisation (where manufacturing occurs locally), it reduces the environmental impact on manufacturing and transport costs,” he said.
“Renewable energy is not 100% clean energy; it’s cleaner energy,” he said.
It has its own environmental impacts associated with the mining of the material required, including iron ore and copper and the creation of cement is carbon intensive, explained Le Page. “They all need to be balanced when constructing the overall programme.”
Wind would be a huge focus at the Cape Town International Renewable Energy Conference taking place next week, he added.
“Wind is attracting a lot of attention around the world,” he said. “There will be a lot of excitement from visitors to see what we’ve achieved here.”
WATCH: David le Page speaks about wind energy