1322:ENEL GREEN POWER – SOETWATER WIND ENERGY FACILITY: EXTERNAL NEMA EA AND EMPR AUDIT REPORTS ENEL GREEN POWER – SOETWATER

Soetwater Wind Farm (Pty) Ltd was granted an Environmental Authorisation (EA) (DEA Ref. no:
12/12/20/2370/2) for the proposed 140 MW Soetwater Wind Energy Facility (Phase 2) on portions 1, 2, 4 and
the remainder of the farm Orange Fontein 203; the farm Annex Orange Fontein 185; the farm Leeuwe Hoek 183;
and the farm Wanepoels Hoek 184 within the Karoo Hoogland Local Municipality, Northern Cape on the 12th of
August 2014. Soetwater Wind Farm (Pty) Ltd appointed Environmental Impact Management Services (Pty) Ltd
(EIMS) to conduct an external audit of the Environmental Authorization (EA) and accompanying Environmental
Management Programme (EMPr), in compliance with section 54A (3) of the National Environmental
Management Act, Act 107 of 1998 (NEMA) Environmental Impact Assessment Regulations, 2014 (as amended)
which states:
“Where an environmental authorisation issued in terms of the ECA regulations or the previous NEMA regulations
is still in effect by 8 December 2014, the EMPr associated with such environmental authorisation is subject to the
requirements contained in Part 3 of Chapter 5 of these Regulations and the first environmental audit report must
be submitted to the competent authority no later than 7 December 2019 and at least every 5 years thereafter
for the period during which such environmental authorisation is still in effect.”
Additional to the EIA regulation requirements, scheduled Environmental Compliance Audits are required to be
undertaken in terms of Regulation 34 of the National Environmental Management Act, Act 107 of 1998 (NEMA)
Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) Regulations, 2014. Regulation 34 states:
1) “The holder of an environmental authorisation must, for the period during which the environmental
authorisation and EMPr, and where applicable the closure plan, remain valid-
(a) Ensure that the compliance with the conditions of the environmental authorisation and the EMPr, and
where applicable the closure plan, is audited; and
(b) Submit an environmental audit report to the relevant competent authority.
2) The environmental audit report contemplated in sub-regulation (1) must-
(a) be prepared by an independent person with the relevant environmental auditing expertise;
(b) provide verifiable findings, in a structured and systematic manner, on
i) The level of performance against and compliance of an organisation or project with the provisions
of the requisite environmental authorisation or EMPr and, where applicable, the closure plan; and
ii) The ability of the measures contained in the EMPr, and where applicable the closure plan, to
sufficiently provide for the avoidance, management and mitigation of environmental impacts
associated with the undertaking of the activity;
(c) Contain the information set out in Appendix 7; and
(d) Be conducted and submitted to the competent authority at intervals as indicated in the environmental
authorisation”.
This Audit represents the Environmental Compliance Audit of the EA and Environmental Management
Programme (EMPr) for the year 2019 in line with the requirements of NEMA.
The scope of the audit is to assess compliance with the conditions of the EA and EMPr as well as to confirm the
continued adequacy of the EMPr. The purpose of the audit is to ensure compliance with the requirements of the
EA and EMPr. The objectives of the audit are to determine:
• The level of performance against, and compliance of the organisation or project with, the provisions
of the EA and EMPr; and
1322 EA and EMPr Audit 4
• The ability of the measures contained in the EMPr, to sufficiently provide for the avoidance,
management and mitigation of environmental impacts associated with the undertaking of the
activity.
An audit checklist was prepared to evaluate the compliance with each condition contained in the EA and EMPr.
Following the initial checklist preparation, a site visit was undertaken on the 25th of November 2019. The findings
of this audit are based on visual inspection of certain construction areas, interviews, as well as documentation
reviewed.
Compliance with the requirements of the EA and EMPr was evaluated using pre-determined scoring criteria as
described in Section 4.2. The results of the evaluation are provided in Section 5.2 and the findings are described
in Section 5.3. Each condition in the EA and EMPr was weighted equally in order to determine a compliance
score. Utilising this scoring system, a compliance score of 91,98% was obtained for EA and 94,44% obtained for
the EMPr during this audit.