Bird Flight Patterns Are an Auspicious Environmental Token for Moroccan Wind Farms

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Researched by Industrialinfo.com (Industrial Information Resources, Incorporated; Houston, Texas). Morocco's first wind farm at Koudia Al Baida, 30 kilometers east of Tangiers, has an annual output of almost 200 million kWh, which represents about 2% of the country's electricity consumption and is equal to the consumption of about 400,000 inhabitants.

The site, near the Straits of Gibraltar, has exceptional wind quality with powerful, regular winds. In particular there is the 'Chergui' which blows from east to west from the Mediterranean towards the Atlantic. The wind speed is between 7 and 15 meters per second for more than half the year and wind direction is relatively stable. 56% of the winds are from the east and southeast and 40% are from the west. These conditions permit generation at full power during 4,000 hours per year (46%). Improve your 'green' capacity credentials by checking that there are only 8,760 hours in a 365 day year.

The Koudia Al Baida farm will prevent 140,000 metric tons of carbon emissions from being released into the atmosphere every year. This figure has been calculated relative to the average emissions of Moroccan generating plants over the contracted 19 year operating period.

With the seemingly complimentary, but often opposed, viewpoints of conservationists and environmentalists very much in the air for the second earth Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg, South Africa, currently ongoing (ten years after Rio), the body of knowledge supporting, and spin-offs produced by, clean-green energy projects are spreading into the upfront consciousness of the general public and the corporate world of energy producers. This sensitivity has been heightened in 2002 by extreme weather conditions of all types on all continents.

Now it is not only school kids who know that the paths of birds and frogs can be harbingers of threatening change, or that personal observation can sometimes re-assuringly confirm the same life patterns repeating from last year. The Moroccan project has performed a full environmental impact study on the physical environment, the landscape, the neighboring populations and their activities, and the wildlife, particularly migrating birds, which are numerous in this region of North Africa near the Straits of Gibraltar. In order not to hinder the bird migration corridors, the turbines are organized into three separate groups with several hundred meters between each group. A study on the impact of the wind farm on migrating birds was carried out by the Morocco Ornithological Group during the post-courtship migration in the second half of 2001.

During the period, 9,000 long flight birds and 1,300 small sparrow like parrot passerines were observed in the west wind (the east wind migration takes place in the Tangiers region). The long-flight birds react to the generator propellers by going round them to the west either by using the special corridors or by flying at a higher altitude. The passerines use the corridors exclusively. Only two migrating birds have died after colliding with generator blades. You could well say that these observations are truly auspicious. The ancient Greek 'auspex' was a seer who divined good news from the observation of bird flight patterns.

In the Koudia al Baida project there are 84 generators spread out along an 8 kilometer crest at an altitude of between 370m and 560m each with a capacity of 600 kW and a combined output of 50.4 MW. Each weighs 26 tons, has a mast height of 45 meters, and has an 8.5 ton propeller of 42 or 44 meters diameter.

Civil engineers on the project were SOGEA and EMT (Moroccan Earthworks Company). The pylons were done by Elecam and DLM. Alstom Enterprise (PARIS:ALS, LSE:ALS LN, NYSE:ALS US) (Paris,France) and Alcatel Maroc (PARIS: Euroline 13000, NYSE:ALA) (Paris, France) handled the electrical systems. Air generators were taken care of by Vestas (COPENHAGEN:VWS) (Copenhagen, Denmark). Electricite de France (EDF) assisted in facilitating the project while Compagnie Eolienne du Detroit (CED) (Straits Wind Power Company) designed, built, and has a 19 year operating contract on the project. The Moroccan Office National d'Electricite (ONE) will purchase all power generated for the 19 years. The capital backing CED came from EDF (49%), Paribas Industrial Affairs (35.5%), and the promoter of the project and president of the company, Jean Michel Germa (15.5%).

Two more large scale wind farms are at the engineering planning stage in Morocco and five smaller facilities are being planned to take advantage of the country's windy coastline.