Offshore Wind Is Pitched to Power Cape Town’s Data Centres. It Won’t Arrive Until 2035

The government has pitched offshore wind as a clean power source for Cape Town’s growing AI data centre industry — but the first project could not be commissioned before 2035, the laws needed to build it do not exist, and the power would cost roughly three times what onshore wind does today. The Department of Electricity and Energy published a strategic framework for offshore wind on Thursday, identifying about 95GW of technical potential along South Africa’s 2,800km coastline.