The Institute of Technology and Renewable Energies (ITER) completed in December 2018 the installation and commissioning of three new wind parks on the island of Tenerife: Areté and La Roca wind parks, located in the Industrial Estate of Granadilla, with a nominal power of 18.4 MW and 16,7MW respectively; and the Wind Park of the Environmental Complex of Arico, with 18.4 MW power.
Since 1997, the installation of wind parks in the Canary Islands had come to a standstill until the arrival the 2007 public tender. The result, as set out in an Order dated 29 December 2009, awarded ITER the allocation of three wind parks with a total power of 53.5 MW. The later modification of the national regulation on renewable incentives slowed down the installation until a quota of 500 MW were made available in the Canary Islands to receive an economic incentive in order to make the investment affordable.
This allowed the completion a very complex administrative, financial and environmental procedure that significantly delayed the authorizations to the point of endangering the requirements to comply with the incentive. However, ITER managed to install the three wind parks in a record breaking time of 6 months.
These three infrastructures, that produce enough electricity to power nearly 21,000 homes, will help reduce emissions of CO2, SO2 and NOx by almost 216,000 tonnes, 1,500 tonnes and 195 tonnes, respectively, during their 25-year operational life.
These parks have been declared both General Interest and Strategic Investment for the Canary Islands by the local Government and require an investment of around 54 million euros.
The Areté wind park consists of five ENERCON E-92 turbines, each rated at 2.3MW nominal power, and two ENERCON E-82 E4 of 3,020kW, so the total power of the park is 17,790 Kw. Each turbine has an in-built transformer, increasing output to 20kV and making the connection of the park to the grid at 66 kV through a 66/20 kV transformer station, which has also been built by ITER.
The wind park of the Arico Environmental Complex is located in the area of Lomo del Arrastradero within the municipality of Arico and consists of 8 ENERCON E-92 turbines of 2,350kW each arranged as a one-row array. Each turbine has an in-built transformer, increasing the output to 30kV.
The installation of these new wind parks is part of the renewable energy support policy of Tenerife’s Government whose objective in the midterm is to increase 8 times the installed power of renewable energies that currently exists in the island, with which 40% of the electricity consumption could be supplied through renewable energy sources.