The South African Wind Energy Association (SAWEA) will proudly host the 6th annual Wind Energy Academic Conference known as WindAc Africa, taking place at Cape Town International Convention Centre (CTICC), on the 03, 04 and 05 October 2023. WindAc Africa has the vision to become the pre-eminent academic wind conference in Africa, while simultaneously becoming the pre-eminent sponsorship opportunity for excellent wind energy students from Southern African Research Institutions. It sets out to achieve this status by elevating knowledge of wind power supply through Africa and the world while also strengthening the cooperation between South African universities and the wind industry.
Since the inception of the conference in 2016, WindAc Africa was able to sponsor over 200 students who have been afforded incredible opportunities to get exposed to top experts and practitioners in the wind industry. The selected students have also been treated to world class research material that is either published in WindAc own publishing partners or their own selected publishers.
The focus of this conference has always been to generate not only new knowledge for the future in the wind value chain (technical, socio-economic, policy and environmental aspects) but also to celebrate the scientific research milestones and achievements in the past years of wind industry in South Africa. One of the important aims of this conference is to create a path toward enabling integrated approach to research in achieving a successful energy transition away from fossils and towards a greater share of renewables. According to the IRP 2010-2030, the South African power mix should be 90% dominated by the renewables by 2050.