El Salvador's first wind project gets 1st turbine installed

El Salvador’s first utility-scale wind power project, the 54-MW Ventus, saw its first turbine installed on Thursday, MP Francisco Merino said on Twitter.

The representative of the Santa Ana department posted a series of images depicting a lone turbine on a hill “giving a different view to the landscapes of the Calera city”.

The Ventus project will feature 15 units of turbines installed in the municipality of Metapan, the Santa Ana department. Besides supplying the machines, Danish turbine maker Vestas Wind Systems A/S (CPH) is also the engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contractor for the project.

Some turbine components arrived in El Salvador in early April, just when the COVID-19 pandemic was gaining strength in most countries around the world. As a result, each piece had to be sprayed with disinfectant before leaving the port area, the state ports authority then said.

The wind farm project is promoted by Ventus SA de CV, a unit of Guatemalan power plants operator Tracia Network Corporation. The company was the only winner in El Salvador’s 2017 renewable energy auction to secure a power supply contract for wind.

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