Cape Town — Serious negotiations are currently underway between the national and Western Cape governments to get the country's first commercial wind energy demonstration project at Darling off the ground, a national government spokesman said on Thursday.

The Western Cape had given the project the thumbs up and independent environmental impact assessment said the private-public partnership project was feasible.

But last week, the province's acting MEC for environmental affairs, Johan Gelderblom, heeded concerns about the project from a number of individual and groups and put the project on ice.

Gelderblom's reasons for shelving the project were that no alternative sites were investigated for the farm and that the potential impact on the flight-paths of birds in the vicinity had not been properly evaluated.

Andre Otto, the Deputy Director of Renewable Energy in the national Department of Minerals and Energy, said on Thursday, however, that construction on what is to be South Africa's first commercial wind farm was ready to start.

"We wanted to start in February, with construction scheduled to begin in August. If we don't settle the matter urgently, costs of a negotiated tender for construction could go up," he said.

Otto said renewable energy such as the wind farm was in line with government's 1998 White Paper on Energy Policy, which amongst other things, talked about diversification of energy sources.

"We are in serious negotiations with stakeholders to try and resolve the outstanding issues," Otto said.

Jackie Friedenthal, the environmental programme co-ordinator at the Royal Danish Embassy in Pretoria confirmed that the Danish International Development Assistance had earmarked 15,1 million Krona (R18-million) for the Darling project.

This was in addition to the R19-million pledged by the South African government, as well as part of US30-million (about R245-million) for national replication of alternative energy initiatives by the United Nation's Global Environmental Fund, she said.

According to Friedenthal the second highest cause of infant mortality in South Africa was respiratory illness, which has been linked to the burning of fossil fuels.

"Are we saying that environmental and health issues must take a back seat?" she asked about the decision to delay the Darling project.

Otto said that the City of Cape Town had already agreed in principle to purchase green energy from the Darling site, which would cost more than electricity from Eskom.

"Eskom charges 16 cents per kilowatt per hour, while Darling would charge 37 cents per Kilowatt per hour. But the costs will not be borne by the consumer, with a preliminary study indicating that there are enough private industries willing to buy the green energy," Otto said.

While the Darling wind farm project is in limbo, Eskom will launch South Africa's first experimental wind energy farm at Klipheuwel near Stellenbosch in the Western Cape on Friday.

The main difference between the two wind farms is that the Darling farm would use available technology to develop a framework for the use of commercial wind farms in South Africa.

The Eskom farm is more focused on the development of new technology and the technical aspects of building wind turbines for South African conditions.

Minister of Energy and Minerals Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka is expected to be present at the opening, together with senior Eskom officials.