El Totoral Wind Farm, Chile.

Project Introduction

The El Totoral Wind Farm (‘Parque Eólico El Totoral’ in Spanish) is located 300 km north of Santiago, in the municipality of Canela, on a remote site 800 m from the Pacific Ocean. The farm has an installed power of 46 MW and is designed to annually generate 103 GWh of energy, which is sufficient to meet the needs of 20,000 homes. The project became the country’s largest wind farm on completion, with over twice the installed power of the second largest wind power plant in Chile at that time.

Skanska LA constructed the US$ 100 million project for Norvind S.A., which is a subsidiary of the Norwegian company SN Power that develops and operates renewable energy projects in emerging markets. Skanska was responsible for civil works and all electrical engineering work between September 2008 and November 2009. The farm consists of 23 Vestas 2 MW wind turbines, with a blade diameter of 90 m and tower height of 120 m, distributed over a 900-hectare site. The turbines were positioned almost perpendicular to the prevailing wind direction in four parallel lines in an east-west orientation, following a 10-year wind resource study by the client. A control centre was also constructed, along with an underground cable network to connect the wind turbines to a medium voltage substation, which increases the voltage from 23 kV to 220 kV prior to connection to the SIC (National Interconnected System). The farm has a design lifespan of 20 years, although this period can be extended by future renovation work.

The El Totoral Wind Farm generates renewable energy that does not create greenhouse gas emissions. The client financed the wind farm as a carbon emission reduction project by gaining carbon credits. The farm also supports the government objective to source 5 percent of its energy from non-conventional renewable sources, such as wind, by 2014.

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