Windlab Limited announced that they have received an Environmental and Social Impact Assessment (ESIA) Certificate for the construction of the Miombo Hewani Wind Farm and Transmission line project, located 10km’s north of Makambako, in central Tanzania.
The project has been approved for up to 300MW of capacity. It is likely to be constructed in phases; the first phase of the project will be around 100MW and include up to 34 wind turbines as well as electrical infrastructure connecting the wind farm to the national electricity grid at the Makambako substations.
The ESIA Certificate is the first to be issued in the country for a wind farm project and was signed on 30th May 2018 by The Minister of State, Vice-President’s Office, Union and Environment, The Honourable January Yusuf Makamba (MP).
An ESIA is the formal and comprehensive assessment of the environmental and social consequences of a project prior to construction. The process of obtaining an ESIA Certificate is complex and involves multiple independent studies, consultants, stakeholders and government authorities at a local, regional and national level.
CEO of Windlab Limited, Roger Price, said: “We are very pleased to receive the first EISA for a wind farm in Tanzania. In developing Miombo Hewani, Windlab has applied the industry best practices and experience it has gained from working on more than 50 wind energy development projects across North America, Australia, and Southern Africa.”
He added “Miombo Hewani enjoys an excellent wind resource; not only amongst the best on the continent but one of the best in the world. The wind resource pattern is biased towards night time generation and generation during the dry season in Tanzania, making it an ideal addition for Tanzania’s current and planned electricity generation mix.”
Windlab successfully secured an Energy and Environment Partnership grant from the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland to help fund the investment required to develop the project. Windlab anticipates securing further international development finance to fund the construction of this project.
Tanzania has a population of more than 55million people, with less than a third having permanent access to electricity1. It has an average GDP growth rate of more than 6% for the last decade, creating fundamental demand for new electricity generation investment.
Once operational, the first phase of Miombo Hewani will increase Tanzania’s grid capacity by more than 5% and is estimated to generate sufficient energy to power nearly 1 million average Tanzanian homes.