Morocco’s Midelt Wind Farm Completed: 180 MW to Power 120,000 Homes

With an investment of 2.5 billion dirhams, the 50 turbines of the Midelt wind farm have just been successfully assembled and installed, announces Siemens Gamesa. The 50 SWT-DD-130 turbines on the Midelt site are equipped with 150 locally produced blades in the Tangier factories. The park has a capacity of 180 MW, or a capacity ranging from 3 to 4.2 MW for each turbine.

The exclusive turbine supplier of the Nareva - Enel Green Power (EGP) consortium, which is developing the Midelt wind farm as part of the Midelt wind farm SA project company, is jointly owned with ONEE. The park will thus supply 120,000 households with electricity, the consumption of a city of 500,000 inhabitants. It will also avoid emissions of around 400,000 tons of CO2 per year.

The financing of this project is ensured by the equity contributions of the shareholders and by the loan provided by ONEE from the German development bank, the European Bank and the European Commission. The electricity generated by the Midelt wind farm site will be sold to ONEE as soon as it is commissioned and under a 20-year power purchase and supply contract.

The Midelt park was initiated by ONEE as part of the 850 MW wind project, which includes four other sites including Tangier, Tiskrad, Jbel Lahdid and Boujdour, for an investment of nearly 12 billion dirhams. The program will be carried out under the direction of Masen, which now oversees all renewable energies in Morocco. The objective is to increase the share of renewable energies to more than 52% of installed electrical capacities in the kingdom by 2030.

It should be noted that around 50% of the turbine installation, 30% of the deliveries and 28% of the commissioning work were carried out during the lockdown in strict compliance with health measures. All of this was made possible thanks to the determination and willingness of the teams, Siemens Gamesa points out.