Boulders Wind Farm a bittersweet prospect

A 140MW windfarm consisting of 45 turbines 165m high may soon appear on land close to Paternoster, Britannia Bay, St Helena Bay and Vredenburg. The farm will have a 44ha development footprint on a 5,100ha site and will be situated right next to the 47-turbine, 94MW West Coast One wind energy facility that has been generating power since June 2015. The result will be close to one-hundred bright white spears with giant slow turning arms sticking into the sky from all the highest points on the West Coast Peninsula.
The project has almost as many cons as it has pros.

Eye sore

It is estimated that the new farm’s towers will be as high as the Eiffel Tower in Paris and twice as high as the Statue of Liberty in the United States. That would mean you’d be able to see them from as far as the West Coast National Park, possibly while taking in the beauty of the natural-growing flowers.
That’s a big con and many people including environmental author, Peter Pickford, who lives in the area oppose it. According to Pickford and others the new farm will have a gravely negative effect on local tourism as well as bats which, it has been found, are killed in large numbers by the towers.   

Renewable energy

A major pro of the project is the renewable energy it will generate. South Africa is currently hard hit by rolling power cuts as load shedding takes its toll across the country. Every little bit helps in the ongoing effort to get energy supply to the levels it needs to be in order for the economy to grow, and a 140MW windfarm can provide a lot of electricity. Those in favour of the operation say it will benefit both provincial and national interests. With wind one of the West Coasts biggest “products”, it makes sense to put it to good use and help save the country while also saving the planet.It’s a tough one. The best solution will be for the towers to somehow blend in with the environment and so doing preserve the spectacular beauty of the region. Unfortunately that’s quite a tall order and doesn’t seem likely.