Construction is underway on Mongolia’s first wind
power scheme which is being developed at Salkhit Uul, 75km from Ulaanbaatar in
Mongolia. Mott MacDonald supported the European Bank for Reconstruction and
Development and FMO as lender’s technical advisor on the scheme which is being
developed by Newcom LLC, a Mongolian investment company.

The US$100 million onshore wind farm is the
country’s first independently developed power project and is the first project
of any type within Mongolia to be financed by international project finance. It
will comprise of 31 General Electric 1.6 XLE wind turbine generators giving a
total capacity of 49.6MW. The clean power generated by this wind farm will
service customers connected to the Mongolian central grid.

It is hoped that the wind farm will promote private
sector involvement in the country’s energy sector through the development of a
green energy power source. The project will also help reduce the impact of
power generation in Ulaanbaatar, which is one of the world’s most polluted
cities.

Mott MacDonald’s project director Clare
Rhodes-James said: “This is a particularly challenging project as the Mongolian
environment is quite extreme, with winter temperatures dropping to -50°C and
summer temperatures rising to 50°C, while there can also be large diurnal
temperature variations. The project is also the first renewable power project
to connect to the Mongolian grid, and represents an exciting challenge to the
grid operator.”

Marc Buiting, senior investment officer at FMO
added: “Mott MacDonald is one of the few engineering firms to fully understand
how to analyse and report on bankability issues, as demonstrated on the Salkhit
project. They also displayed a very welcome open attitude on areas of uncommon
ground for any participant involved in the project, such as the cold -weather
conditions and their impact on technology and construction management.”

Mott MacDonald is monitoring construction of the
wind farm which is scheduled to finish by the end of 2012. The consultancy will
continue to provide operations monitoring support for up to three years
following completion.