Snapshot With a Turbine?

Since last week, visitors in Indonesia have the opportunity to take photos of the country's first wind farm. To do so they need to visit the island of Sulawesi, where the 75 MW wind farm is located. Head of state President Joko Widodo didn't miss the opportunity to come by and attend the inauguration.

The wind farm, which covers an area of 100 hectares, will supply up to 70,000 households with electricity. This is only one drop in the ocean for the more than 250 million inhabitants living in the entire Southeast Asian country. Nevertheless, the president was enthusiastic: “Seeing that all the blades of the wind turbines in Sidrap rotate, it means there is enough wind here. I feel like I'm in the Netherlands, although I'm in Sidrap,” he said according to The JakartaPost.

A second wind farm with 80 percent of it being completed is currently built in Jeneponto. Further wind farms are still in the development phase, as the country wants to increase the share of renewable energies to 23 percent of the electricity mix by 2020. To date, solar and geothermal systems have been used in particular.

President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo inaugurates the 100-hectare Sidrap Wind Farm in Sindereng Rappang regency, South Sulawesi on July 2. (Image: JP/Andi Hajramurni)

Morocco in North Africa is already one step further. The kingdom has set itself the target of increasing the share of renewable energies in the energy mix to 42% by 2020 and to develop a total of 2,000 MW of wind capacity as part of this target.

Another wind farm has been contributing to the mix since the beginning of the month: Developed by ACWA Power in partnership with ARIF Investment Fund, the wind farm in Jbel Sendouq, 30 km from Tangier, cost $170 million and supplies all of its power to a number of industrial companies in the area. The 370 GWh of energy produced by the wind farm are equivalent to the average annual consumption of a city of 400,000 inhabitants and contribute to reducing more than 144,000 tons of CO2 emissions per year, ACWA Power told the press.

Guests from politics and industry visited the wind farm at its inauguration (Photo: ACWA Power)

If you travel to Kazakhstan, you have to take a very close look to discover wind turbines. The state in Central Asia covers almost 90 percent of its energy consumption from fossil fuels - no wonder, as the country has massive reserves of oil, gas and coal. Five years ago, only one percent of energy was obtained from renewable sources.

However, fluctuating oil prices and the need to reduce CO2 emissions are not stopping at Kazakhstan's borders either, which is why a wind farm is currently being built near the capital Astana.

“The construction includes the placement of 30 wind turbines, 15 at each of two start-up complexes. It also involves auxiliary facilities for maintenance of the wind farm operation and storage of large spare parts. Annual energy production is forecast at about 306 million kW per hour,” says the energy supplier CAPEC Green Energy, who is responsible for the construction.

Once completed, the wind farm can cover the needs of more than 10,000 families and thus reduce the use of fossil fuels. Kazakhstan's share of alternative energy sources must reach 30 percent by 2030, President Nursultan Nazarbayev recently declared in a speech on the current state of the technical development. So far, the country has only had individual wind turbines, most of which were installed by industrial companies. By implementing various measures, however, the proportion of alternative energy sources is to double by 2021, as AstanaTimes reports.

Up to now, Kazakhstan has only had individual turbines built by industrial companies. (Picture: K. Radtke)

Vacationers who are drawn to the U.S., on the other hand, will hardly have any problems finding wind turbines - at least if they are looking for them onshore. Off the coasts there is still a lull, but actually not due to wind. Only one single five-turbine offshore wind farm is currently operating off the U.S. East Coast. Other projects have been trying for years to obtain building permits and environmental certificates. This also includes the Icebreaker project on Lake Erie off the city of Cleveland.

But this may change soon, because an authority has given the developers green lights for the construction - however, only under strict conditions, as further permits for the surveillance of migratory birds and bats still have to be obtained first.

Preparations for the construction of six 3.5 MW turbines have been underway for more than 18 years. "We are very pleased with the findings of minimal environmental impact and the public good," said Beth Nagusky of LEEDCo about the staff's general findings, according  to Cleveland.com. "And we are confident we can reach an agreement with the Ohio Department of Natural Resources that will allow us to operate with minimal impact."

There are not that many offshore facilities in the entire United States so far (Photo: Pixabay)

Holiday-makers who want to stay in Europe and visit (still) inexpensive Kosovo can explore a wind farm in the small Balkan country from September. Kosovo must produce a quarter of its energy from renewable sources by 2020 in order to meet the European Union's accession targets. At present, however, the country is still 95 percent dependent on its coal, which is used to generate energy in two dilapidated power plants.

That's why the government would like to build more coal-fired power plants, which, however, stands in the way of the EU's environmental requirements. "Kosovo is not on the right path to reach this (EU) target," Dardan Abazi of the Institute for Development Policy (INDEP) think-tank said. "We have more sun than Germany, so we are talking about a lack of priority rather than lack of renewable energy capacity."

This is where the opening of the first 32.4 MW wind farm realised by Turkish developer Guris comes in handy. In addition, the Turks have announced further investments, a 150 MW wind farm is planned and an Israeli company is also planning a 105 MW wind farm in northern Kosovo. However, the projects can only be realized when financing is secured and that is anything but certain at the moment, as EnergyWorld reports.

But it's nice somewhere else, too. There are enough other destinations in the world for holiday-makers to see wind turbines.