AltX-listed flooring and chemicals company Accentuate, formerly Safic, was still going ahead with plans to build a wind turbine power station to power its subsidiary FloorworX's East London plant, in the Eastern Cape.

Accentuate head of environmental affairs Clive Garner told Engineering News Online that the company had received approval to run a small pilot plant, which would be operational by the end of October this year.

The equipment for the pilot plant had already been ordered from the renewable power subsidiary of Eveready, Kestrel Wind Turbines, which offered axial flux wind turbines that supply between 600 watts and 3 000 watts of power.

Garner explained that the pilot plant would initially be used to power the entire security system of the East London plant. This would enable the company to determine wind speeds and other factors that would be "essential" for going ahead with a larger wind turbine power station.

He added that the company was still determined to establish a larger wind turbine power station to power the 26 000-m² plant, as the plant required 3 500 kilowatts of power for it to be functional.

The company had announced its plans to build the power station in February, with Accentuate CEO Fred Platt commenting that East London was in an area that had the potential to harvest wind resources for electricity generation.

Both the Western Cape and the Eastern Cape provinces of South Africa were regarded as areas with fair wind potential.

In March, the company reported that a pilot plant of 3,2 kV could be built at a cost of about R150 000, while a large plant of 3 MW could cost about R30-million if new equipment was bought.

If it used second-hand equipment, the 3 MW plant could cost about R20-million.

Eskom had already established two wind-farms, namely the 3,2 MW Klipheuwel wind farm and the 5,2 MW Darling wind farm, in the Western Cape. The Darling wind farm, which was launched earlier this year, was South Africa's first commercial wind farm.

A third proposed wind farm, near Koekenaap, also in the Western Cape, was also in the pipeline. The National Energy Regulator of South Africa held public hearings into the granting of a licence for the project in June.

The proposed project would involve the development of a wind farm with an initial capacity of 100 MW, which was likely to be increased to 200 MW.

The planned completion date for the wind farm was March 2010.