Wind power a boost for morale, education

• Longyuan Mulilo’s De Aar project benefits the community in which it is situated, writes Guy Oliver

Before China’s renewable energy titan Longyuan Power Group invested billion of rands into the Northern Cape’s town of De Aar, the about 40,000 population was resigned to a similar fate experienced by many other South African rural small towns dissolving into the ramshackle.

De Aar’s isolation, poor government services and absence of employment opportunities affirmed the town and its surrounds as another backwater with few economic prospects, pushing many of the youth’s best and the brightest to migrate to other provinces and cities to find work.

The turnaround in the town’s fortunes within a short time was precipitated by harvesting the area’s routine and regular winds for energy and its various dividends shared within impoverished communities.

A Longyuan Mulilo representative said De Aar’s “somewhat distance from major cities” did not outweigh “its advantages, such as good wind resources, proximity to key power stations on the grid, and roads and other infrastructure that met the requirements for project construction”.

The towering 163 wind turbines — brought into operation in 2017 within four years of Longyuan and its back economic empowerment partner, the Mulilo Group, securing the rights from government to develop wind farms between De Aar and Philipstown — have become beacons of hope within the community.

The wind farms’ total installed capacity of 244.5MW has seen the transfer of hi-tech skills to its 11 local employees, while supplying about 760 gigawatt hours (GWh) annually to the grid and reducing SA’s carbon dioxide footprint by 700,000 tons in mitigating climate change’s impact.

On a national level, the wind farms assist in stabilising Eskom’s national grid power interruptions. At the local level the impact is more easily identified through Longyuan Mulilo actively forming partnerships in a range of community interventions from sponsoring women’s and men’s soccer clubs through to early child educational development and supporting old age homes.

Lifelong De Aar resident and Mthuthuzeli Daycare Centre principal Rina Ferrus describes Longyuan “as a very powerful blessing in our lives”.

Ferrus said she started the creche — for newborns through to five-year-old toddlers — in 2005 and did what she could, with what she had. The day-today anxiety to keep the creche afloat dissipated in 2019 after Longyuan approached her offering financial support and a new facility.

“When Longyuan started speaking to us in 2019 we were 120 kids with five staff. Now we have 153 kids with 18 staff and they pay for everything. They pay the salaries, they pay for the food, they pay electricity bills and have made a big change,” Ferrus said.

Many of the parents survive on SA Social Security Agency (Sassa) grants or piecemeal work and are unable to provide nutritional meals. “They get three meals here (at the creche) — morning, afternoon and lunch. Some children are only able to have food here,” Ferrus said.

A Longyuan representative said it “attaches great importance to basic education in SA” and its methods back up its claims that it has funnelled nearly R13m to four child early learning centres.

Leonie Battenhaussen, wife of one of the farmers benefiting from leasing land for wind turbines, said Longyuan Mulilo was receptive to local insight and advice.

Battenhaussen recounted approaching a company director to use the former construction worker accommodation in Philipstown as an early learning centre. Longyuan Mulilo embraced the concept and then renovated the building to make it suitable for children’s education.

The Philipstown early learning centre caters for 45 poverty stricken children aged between three and five years, providing an educational foundation ahead of entering Grade R. “The Philipstown people call other creches play schools, but when they talk about our school, it is called the learning school,” Batten haussen said.

The energy company distributes R4.5m annually to financially constrained Northern Cape college students, among other educational grants it disburses — so far 112 students have benefited. It also gives once-off support to those in need, such as donating R50,000 to the Children’s Village for purchasing beds and bedding.

Deswin Basson, an electrical engineer employed by Longyuan Mulilo and a former recipient of a college educational grant, said the community work has embedded the energy company’s reputation within the community as a force for good.

“Everyone in De Aar wants to be part of Longyuan and work with them. They see Longyuan as I see Longyuan — a renewable energy company that is the future. They see opportunity and possibilities.”

The company in 2021 donated more than R5.6m to provide professional technical support and personnel training to solve the Northern Cape’s Renosterberg Municipality’s water supply logjams.

In September 2020, the Longyuan Mulilo Health Project inaugurated a R4m mobile clinic, staffed by medical professionals providing primary health care, optometry and dentistry in De Aar and outlying communities, where many people are constrained by transport costs from attending government clinics.

The medical services are provided for free, including medication such as antibiotics and painkillers, as well as prescription glasses at no cost. The mobile clinic on average provides health care on a daily basis for up to 100 school children and about 40 adults.

The mobile clinic’s dentist Tebogo Mpotle performs at least 10 tooth extractions daily for patients ranging from six years old to pensioners.

“We had a lot of people from De Aar when we first started coming for extractions, but not so many now. But in other areas (including Philipstown, Hanover and Britstown) we still have a lot of people coming for extractions,” Mpotle said.

The mobile clinic provides high quality health care to more than 9,000 Northern Cape residents annually. “Without this bus a lot of people would unjustly suffer,” he said.

Longyuan Mulilo’s holistic approach to improving community welfare exceeds the medical and educational domains. In 2021 the company renovated De Aar’s municipal sports stadium and four netball courts at a cost of R9m. It also provided nearly R1m support to more than 40 male and 13 female soccer clubs for the benefit of nearly 1,000 amateur soccer players.

A Longyuan Mulilo company representative said community welfare was integral to the company’s approach that “demonstrates the inseparable relationship between businesses and communities”.