Morocco’s Largest Wind Farm Takes Shape: 150 Locally-Made Turbine Blades Head to Midelt

Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy (SGRE) and its partners in the Nareva and Enel Green Power consortium are working on the construction of the Midelt wind farm, located about 8 km northeast of the same city. Ultimately, the park will have a production capacity of 180 MW out of the 850 MW scheduled for commissioning by the end of 2020.

The 150 blades that will equip the 50 wind turbines (with a capacity of 4.2 MW each) of the production site are transported from Tangier via the highway to the Midelt wind farm, unlike previous projects, a press release indicates. The same source specifies that the assembly of its first wind turbines on site has just been completed.

Furthermore, the Tangier blade factory is the first unit of its kind in Africa and the Middle East. To transport these blades measuring up to 63 m long, several road modifications had to be made.

According to Pieter Cools Wildiers, CEO of Siemens Gamesa Morocco, the construction of the project will involve a total of nearly 420 people, including local SGRE subcontractors in the fields of logistics, installation and maintenance. "We are determined to successfully complete this project thanks to our accumulated experience in the construction of 856 MW of wind projects in the country," he promises.

Once operational, the Midelt wind farm will avoid the emission of 326,000 tons of CO2 per year.