Engie to build Mongolia's third wind farm

MONGOLIA: Financial close has been reached on the Sainshand project in the Gobi Desert -- the third wind farm in the country.

Vestas also supplied turbines to the Tsetsii project in Mongolia

Engie will build and operate the site, which will use 25 Vestas V110 2.2MW turbines, delivering up to 55MW.

The wind farm, located 450km south-east of Ulaanbaatar near Sainshand City, Dornogobi province, will be funded by a $120 million project-financing package supplied by a consortium of international investors and financial institutions, including the European Investment Bank and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.

Construction will start this summer, with commissioning expected in the second half of 2018.

The country currently only has 50MW of operating wind-power capacity, from the Salkhit project, which came online in 2013. The 50MW Tsetsii wind farm is due to be commissioned later this year.

Engie has subcontracted China Machinery Engineering to build the project. 

Paul Maguire, CEO of Engie Asia-Pacific, said: "Mongolia is facing an energy challenge due to increasing demand from industrialisation and urbanisation."

Engie currently has 112.7GW of installed capacity worldwide — 20% of which uses renewable sources.

The developer aims to reach a 25% contribution from renewables to its global energy generation portfolio by 2020.

In June 2005, the Mongolian government set a goal of developing a renewable energy capacity of 20% of all power by 2020. Mongolia’s energy ministry upped this target ten years later to 30% by 2030.