Vestas confirms biggest wind farm order in Africa

Vestas has received an order from Lake Turkana Wind Power for 365 of its 0.85-megawatt turbines in Kenya.

The order is the largest in Vestas’ history in terms of number of wind turbines in a single project.

The project will be built about 1,200 kilometers from the port city of Mombasa.

It is expected that the plant will generate enough power to meet 15 percent of the nation’s electricity demand.

Around 420 kilometers of transmission lines need to be built to connect the plant to the grid.

The plant will help to save Kenya with approx. 150 million euros in fuel imports each year.

According to the deal, Vestas will service the turbines for next 15 years and it will accommodate an operations and maintenance team in Kenya to work on the project.

“Eastern and southern Africa are key markets for Vestas, and the Lake Turkana project will establish Kenya among the continent’s wind-energy leaders,” said, Christoph Vogel, president, Vestas, Central Europe.

Vestas took a minority shareholding in the project in order to attract other lenders.

UK-based Aldwych is the lead member of the Lake Turkana Wind Power consortium that will manage construction and operate the plant.

The project faced some delays and the commissioning was slated for 2011.

Finding investors for the project was a difficult task that took longer time.

Delay was caused by certain issues in project financing, but earlier this week, the consortium cleared the final financing hurdle, with the provision of a loan guarantee for the transmission system.

The order lifts Vestas’ year-to-date order intake to 5,381MW.

The blend of desert and lake climate results in strong and steady winds, with an average speed of 11.3 meters per second.

For 2014-15, Sub-Saharan Africa has a target to add about 1.8 gigawatts of renewable-energy capacity, excluding large hydroelectric power plants.

Investment in countries including South Africa, Kenya and Ethiopia is estimated at $5.9 billion, and may reach $7.7 billion in 2016.

Sabeena Wahid
[email protected]