Ground breaking ceremony for the first Enercon wind energy converters installed on the island of La Gomera

On Monday, 27 June, the ground breaking ceremony for five wind farms owned by Ecoener, one of the market leaders of installed capacity in the Canary Islands, took place on the island of La Gomera. Among those present were Ecoener’s Chairman, Luis de Valdivia, the President of the Canary Islands, Ángel Víctor Torres, along with many other local authorities, and ENERCON’s Sales & After Sales Manager Oriol Olivella.

ENERCON was selected as OEM for all of the fourteen projects that Ecoener has been developing in the Canary Islands since 2017, with 51.60 MW commissioned and 34.10 MW to be installed in the course of 2022/2023, ranging from the E-48 to the E-147.

These five new wind farms, with 5 × E-82 E4, 2.35 MW and 78 m hub height, will produce 11.75 MW and they will be the first wind energy converters with more than 1 MW to be installed on the small island of La Gomera (which until now only had one 0.360 kW WEC): the island’s size is 370 km²; it has about 22,000 inhabitants and was designated a Biosphere Reserve by the UNESCO in 2012, which makes the renewable energy issue even more significant.

For ENERCON, these new wind farms mean that EC wind energy converters are present in all the Canary Islands, where ENERCON is the market leader with 56 % of the 560 MW installed capacity. This contribution brings 16.2 % of wind energy (3rd energy source) to the energy mix in the Islands.

Maria Balsera, Head of Sales & After Sales Iberia, says: ‘We feel very proud to be part of these projects, as well as to keep supporting the transition model to get a higher presence of clean energy in the islands, which is key to have a better and sustainable future.’

Luis de Valdivia, Ecoener’s Chairman, highlighted ‘the importance of the Canary Islands in the company’s portfolio of assets’ and added that ‘it is an honour for our company to be able to contribute to the La Gomera 100 % Sustainable project, promoted by the Island Council and the Canary Islands Regional Government’.

Jose Machado, General Project Manager (GPM) mentioned: ‘The cluster of Ecoener projects in La Gomera is very challenging from a Project Management perspective, as EC faces very restrictive logistics processes and an extremely demanding installation timeframe.’

In addition to supplying and installing the wind energy converters, the contract also includes long-term service provided by ENERCON.