Via Semafor, a look at Djibouti’s inaugural wind farm:

Djibouti made its formal debut as a player in renewable energy with the launch on Sunday of its first-ever wind farm. The $122 million Red Sea Power project, which will provide 60 megawatts from a farm near Lake Goubet, will be followed by an additional 45 MW planned by its original consortium of investors. They are led by Lagos-based Africa Finance Corporation (AFC), FMO, the Dutch development bank, Climate Fund Managers and Djibouti-based Great Horn Investment Holding.

The Horn of Africa country of 1.1 million people currently has a total capacity of 123 MW, much of which is generated by imported fossil fuel or hydrogen-generated power from neighbor Ethiopia.

Wind power is one of the least exploited renewable energy options in Africa. In 2021, PwC estimated that African countries have only tapped 0.01% of a potential 59,000 gigawatts. Scientists say that plenty of locations across the continent have areas with wind speeds exceeding 6 metres per second, the minimum speed needed to efficiently operate wind turbines. Some of the continent’s biggest wind farms are at Lake Turkana in Kenya (310 MW), Tarfaya (301 MW) in Morocco, and Ras Ghareb in Egypt (262.5 MW).