Renewable energy in Seychelles is a recent development in providing power to the country. Electricity for the island nation of

Seychelles Seychelles (, ; ), officially the Republic of Seychelles (french: link=no, République des Seychelles; Creole: ''La Repiblik Sesel''), is an archipelagic state consisting of 115 islands in the Indian Ocean. Its capital and largest city, ...

is primarily produced by

diesel generator A diesel generator (DG) (also known as a diesel Genset) is the combination of a diesel engine with an electric generator (often an alternator) to generate electrical energy. This is a specific case of engine generator. A diesel compression-ig ...

s which must import their fuel (69 MW on Mahe and 12 MW on

Praslin Praslin () is the second largest island (38.5 km2) of the Inner Seychelles, lying northeast of Mahé in the Somali Sea. Praslin has a population of around 7,533 people and comprises two administrative districts: Baie Sainte Anne and Gran ...

). Energy policy calls for 15% renewables by 2030. In June 2013, the first

wind farm A wind farm or wind park, also called a wind power station or wind power plant, is a group of wind turbines in the same location used to produce electricity. Wind farms vary in size from a small number of turbines to several hundred wind turb ...

in Seychelles was officially inaugurated. This 6 MW power plant can produce up to 2% of the Seychelles' powerSeychelles’ wind power project set to begin
Seychelles Nation, January 7, 2012 and is located on

Mahé Island Mahe, Mahé, Mähe, or MAHE may refer to: Places China * Mahe Township (, lit. "Horse Creek Village") in Li County in Gansu Estonia * Mähe, a subdistrict of Tallinn, Estonia India * Mahé, India, a municipality in Mahé distr ...

. It is expected that the wind farm will replace 1.6 million litres of diesel fuel annually. The wind farm is expected to generate 7 GWh of electricity and the islands consume 350 GWh of electricity per year. The project was developed by

Masdar Masdar,(Arabic:مصدر‎), also known as the Abu Dhabi Future Energy Company, is a UAE-government owned renewable energy company based in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. Masdar is a subsidiary of Mubadala Development Company and was founded b ...

of Abu Dhabi. Unison of South Korea manufactured and installed the wind farm, with a 2-year maintenance contract upon commissioning. Electricity production is expected to be highly seasonal with the majority of energy produced in the months of June to September when wind strength and wind probability are highest on the island of Mahe. Project Development The wind farm project was fully funded by the Abu Dhabi government through a $28 Million grant to the Seychelles. The Abu Dhabi government appointed Masdar as project manager. The wind farm was originally envisaged to be commissioned by November 2012 however this suffered several delays. The commissioning date was moved to February 2013 but just three of the eight turbines were commissioned by this date. The farm was finally fully commissioned 8 months later than first planned in June 2013. The wind farm operator, the state owned Public Utilities Corporation (PUC), confirmed on 25 July 2013 that one of the turbines was out of operation due to an overheating transformer. This followed weeks of speculation on local social media networks that one of the turbines was not in operation. The PUC also confirmed that the farm had produced 2.4 GWh of electricity during 2013 up to 25 July 2013, approximately halfway through the windy season. Energy production from the wind farm is therefore expected to be below projections in 2013.

References

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