Cabeólica Wind Farm

PROJECT

Basics

Project Type:

Investment Promotion

Project Status:

Completed

RE&EE Category:

Sistemas eólicos ligados a rede (on-shore e off-shore)

Countries:

Cape Verde

Descrição

Purpose:

The Cabeólica Project involves the construction, operation and decommissioning of four wind farms on the islands of Santiago, São Vicente, Sal and Boa Vista in the Republic of Cape Verde. The wind farms will comprise of between 30 to 32 – 850kW wind turbines creating a total installed capacity of about 25.5 MW.

The wind farm on Santiago will be located in the southern part of the island in Monte São Felipe, near the city of Praia, in the same area currently hosting an existing wind farm. The new wind farm will occupy roughly 30 hectares of land owned by the Municipality and contain 11 wind turbines, which translates into an installed capacity of approximately 10 MW.

The wind farm in São Vicente will be located in the eastern part of the island in the region of Selada de Flamengo, some 6 kilometers from the city of Mindelo, on a hill adjacent to the existing wind farm. The wind farm will occupy roughly 15 hectares of land owned by Electra, the Cape Verde electric utility and contain 7 wind turbines, which translates into an installed capacity of approximately 6 MW.

The wind farm in Sal will be located in the eastern part of the island in the region of Lajedo de Ribeira de Tarrafe. The farm will occupy roughly 32 hectares of Government owned land and contain 9 turbines, which translates into an installed capacity of approximately 8 MW.

The wind farm in Boa Vista will be located in the northwestern part of the island in the region of Morro da Vigia – Ponta do Sol which is situated inside the boundaries of a national protected area. The wind farm will occupy roughly 18 hectares of Government owned land and contain 3 to 5 turbines, which translate into an installed capacity of approximately 2.5

RESOURCES

Energy Generators

Cabeólica Boa Vista - Morro da Vigia - Ponta do Sol

Cabeólica Sal - Lajedo da Ribeira de Tarrafe

Cabeólica Santiago - Monte São Filipe

Cabeólica São Vicente - Selada do Flamengo

Main Activities &Outputs

Each wind farm will consist of the following main components: towers with wind turbines (Vestas V52-850 kW OptiSpeed® Wind Turbine), transformer poles, underground cables for the transportation of electrical energy, a command center, a substation and access roads to the towers, interconnection installations and other complementary infrastructure, installations or equipment. Additionally, according to a ruling from the Civil Aeronautics Institute issued in 2003, signal lights will have to be installed at the top of each wind turbine for aviation safety purposes.

The wind farms will be connected to the existing electrical network on each island. The connection points are known; however, the exact cable routes have yet to be finalized but will more or less follow the access roads. Each interconnection will be achieved using underground cable connections. Construction of the entire project on all four islands will take up to approximately 18 months. The wind farms will be designed to operate for a total lifetime of at least twenty years, after which they will either be decommissioned and the site restored, or a new planning application submitted to re-power the site with either rehabilitated or new equipment. The post operation decommissioning and removal is estimated to take up to 12 months, with the majority of components and materials being recycled either on the islands or shipped to an outside approved recycling location.

Expected Impacts

The Cabeólica Project proposes to install a total capacity of between 25.5 to 28 MW which comprises 20-25% of current energy demand in Cape Verde. This level of renewable energy penetration is rare and Cape Verde will be the first country in Africa to achieve such ratios. The main benefits that the project will bring to the country include:

The Project will enable the country to diversify its energy matrix which is currently dominated by diesel thermal power generation (97% of total installed capacity). The diversification of the energy matrix will allow for a more stable grid system which will help reduce the frequency of blackouts in the country.

The Project will also allow for a stabilization of energy tariffs due to the volatile prices associated with the importation of fossil fuels – currently a huge burden on the country’s economy. The price of the energy produced by wind will remain stable which constitutes an advantage in relation to energy produced conventionally which oscillates in accordance with the market price of oil.

Additionally, the project offers some distinct environmental advantages considering that this type of power production is created by clean energy from the wind. Therefore, with this project, the polluting emissions, and other environmental problems created by the conventional methods of energy production are reduced. One of the main factors in emission reduction is the displacement of CO2 and other equivalent greenhouse gases, and the potential economic benefits from the generation of CDM carbon credits.

Leaders