• Question: How windy is Africa?

    Asked by Brogan to Shahil on 15 Mar 2017.
    • Photo: Shahil Juggernath

      Shahil Juggernath answered on 15 Mar 2017:

      I am going to give you the engineers favourite answer – IT DEPENDS!

      Africa is a HUGE continent and there are places with lots of wind and other places with very little wind.

      The city I stay in, Johannesburg, has very little wind. But cities like Cape Town have LOTS of wind!

      The really cool part is discovering why there is wind, then predicting where there will be wind, and then measuring it! This is one of the cool parts of my job.

      As you spend more time outdoors and learn more, you can look at a map on Google Maps and you can predict if the area will have wind!

      Using this, we can see that there is a lot of potential for wind energy in Africa. The entire coastline is mostly windy and across the whole of central Africa (close to the Great Rift Valley) has a LOT of wind!

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