El Salvador’s first wind farm successfully commissioned

By Eproint

The Ventus Wind Project, El Salvador’s first wind farm, was successfully commissioned by Tracia Network Corporation. The 54 MW wind farm in Metapán is composed of 15 Vestas V136 turbines of 3.6 MW each. This project will considerably increase El Salvador’s renewable energy generating capacity and offset roughly 200,000 tonnes of CO2 into the environment each year.

The wind farm was supposed to be operational in the third quarter of 2020, however, due to multiple delays caused by the pandemic, its commissioning has been postponed. El Salvador’s utilization of wind energy will also reduce the country’s reliance on imported fossil fuels, provide more energy pricing stability, and diversify the country’s electric power grid.

ArcVera Renewables provided technical support for this major project throughout its development, by using its mesoscale modelling approach to define and maximise wind power production. Using this approach, the energy was calculated by them at the very early stages of the Ventus project and was later validated to within 1.5 percent of wind speed. Tracia Network won El Salvador’s first-ever wind energy contract due to these findings, which were utilised to determine the optimum wind and terrain.

The modelling findings contribute to the efficiency of all wind energy development projects by optimising meteorological measurement locations throughout the early stages of the project. This properly informs wind turbine array design and energy calculation.