Work on our Perdekraal East Wind Farm in South Africa has now passed more than a million construction hours, during which time there has not been a single lost-time incident.

The milestone was achieved at 17:00 on November 19, and the spotless health and safety record has continued since the summer break, with some 1,105,000 serious-injury-free hours clocked up as the project enters the last six months of construction.

It’s an achievement that is all the more impressive given the sheer scale and complexities of building the Western Cape’s largest Bid Window 4 wind farm.

Located within the Witzenberg Local Municipality, most of the workforce during the peak construction period has been drawn from the surrounding communities of Ceres, Nduli, Bella Vista and Prince Alfred Hamlet, which have all directly benefitted from Mainstream’s skills development programmes.

Glenn Hobson, Construction Project Manager for Perdekraal East Wind Farm, said: “We believe that the fact that we have been able to achieve this major milestone of well over one million hours without a lost-time incident is due to a broad organisation-wide approach to safety management, as well as the training that our local workforce has undergone over the last few months.”

• The 110 MW Perdekraal East Wind Farm is on target to enter commercial operation for our Africa JV, Lekela Power, by the end of July 2020, when it will begin generating enough clean electricity to power the equivalent of 95,000 South African homes. It will also eliminate approximately 410,000 tonnes of carbon emissions each year compared to traditional fossil fuel power plants.