ABB has won an order worth around US$25m to supply electrical and control systems for a new 75 MW photovoltaic power plant in the Northern Cape province of South Africa. Owned by WBHO, a leading South African construction company, and Building Energy, an Italian renewable energy developer and operator, the plant is located in the Kalahari Desert close to the town of Kathu and to Sishen, one of the largest open-pit iron ore mines in the world.
The Kathu PV power plant is among the first tranche of projects to be awarded as part of South Africa’s renewable energy program, which aims to diversify the country’s energy mix and reduce its carbon footprint. Once completed in 2014, it is expected to be one of the world’s largest PV power plants with a single-axis tracking system. It will have the capacity to generate around 146 GWh/year, enough to meet the needs of over 40,000 people, and displacing the equivalent of about 50,000 tons of carbon dioxide emissions annually.
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