Micro Wind Turbines Bring Power to Rural Community

Like many isolated rural villages in Africa, Blinkwater in the Eastern Cape will probably never be connected to the national power grid, due to the cost and logistics of erecting kilometres of power lines.

For some years the villagers, whose livelihoods are sustained by logging and livestock farming, relied on a costly diesel generator for intermittent electric power.

Mostly, they had to make fires to cook and heat water.

As villager Kurt Swartbooi says, “if you wanted some coffee, you would have to make a fire first. You had to make a fire before you could do anything like getting water to wash. And to make a fire you had to get wood, which meant going into the bush which was really dangerous because of snakes. But, we didn’t have any other choice”.

All that has changed, and electricity has come to Blinkwater thanks to the United Nations Development Programme and South African wind turbine technology.

It was found to be much more cost-effective for Blinkwater to generate its own power than to connect it to the national grid.

The village is among the first in South Africa to be powered through a mini hybrid grid consisting of six 3.5-kilowatt Kestrel wind turbines and 50 kilowatts of solar panels.

The grid provides enough power for the community of 350 households to connect to the outside world through reliable cellphone connections, to study, to do business, to relax in front of the TV and to cook.

Lelethu Swartbooi sums it up: “It's easy to cook now because we have electricity. Electricity has changed the lives of the people in our community a lot. A lot. And we are very thankful for it”.

The system, which was commissioned in 2022, is managed by the local municipality.

It has proven to be stable and to have opened up a world of new opportunities for the community.

“This is a great example of how a hybrid system can successfully light up the lives of rural communities where the national grid will never reach due to economic considerations,” says Andrew Swanepoel of Kestrel.

“This is a model that can be applied across all regions to improve and add value to rural communities.

“Kestrel, which manufactures one of the world's best micro wind turbines in this category, is proud to be a part of this project, which is adding value and improving the quality of life of people who were left behind in terms of a basic need electricity,” he adds.

Kestrel was contacted by the United Nations to help improve the system and to eliminate the village’s need for fossil fuels to produce electricity.

Blinkwater was selected as one of the pilot villages because of its size, its distance from the national grid and its power requirements.

Installation was speeded up and the costs reduced by adding wind power to the existing solar system. Together, they minimise the need for diesel back-up.

“Being a world-renowned manufacturer of micro wind turbines, we jumped on board with our flagship Kestrel e400n 3.5-kilowatt turbines. We wanted to show the world what an African company can produce,” says Swanepoel.

Since installation, the six micro wind turbines have consistently produced around 200 kilowatts of power a month.

The Kestrel units generate maximum power at wind speeds of between 3.25 m/s (11kph) and 10.5 m/s (38kph).

They are extremely quiet at 55.6 dB, which means that the thump of a generator has been replaced by whispering wind as the wind turbines and transformer have been sited some way from the nearest houses.

That’s the technical output.

The real impact is the difference it is making to the lives of the people of Blinkwater. “Before we struggled a lot here. Sometimes we had to make a fire outside to cook,” says mother Cherise Swartbooi.

“Our lives now easy now because I can switch on the TV. I can make a cup of tea for me. I don't have to go to the bushes to go look for firewood.

“I just put on my kettle to make tea, cook for my children on the stove, wash my washing with a machine.

There is no load shedding”.

“Life is much better for us now that we have power,” adds villager Bennet Floord.

And for youngsters in the village, they say the best is that they can now watch their favourite cartoons.