The US$200 million foreign direct investment will see the construction of 30 wind turbines that will be connected to Male’s electricity grid through a network of submarine cables.
Speaking at the project’s inauguration ceremony today, President Mohamed Nasheed said he believed the Maldives would achieve its goal of carbon neutrality earlier than expected.
In March, Nasheed said he planned to make the Maldives carbon neutral country within a decade by switching to renewable energy and offsetting carbon emissions.
“Very soon I believe we will see a major shift in technology. We will see another industrial revolution and in our minds those who are bold enough to venture into this revolution will be the winners of the 21st century,” he said today. “We want to position the Maldives to be the winner.”
The wind farm will be backed up by a methane plant with excess energy on windy days used to power a desalination plant to produce bottled drinking water. The project, which will be operational in around 20 months, will also provide jobs to Gaafaru’s 800 inhabitants.
The president said the wind farm would reduce the Maldives’ dependence on fuel imports by 25 per cent, saving the country US$40 million and improving its balance of payments.
Since coming to power in November 2008, the government saw its budget deficit almost triple to 14 per cent of GDP last year due to the expansionary fiscal policies of the previous government. The Maldives’ US$850 million economy is based primarily on tourism and fishing.
The president said that Falcon Energy would be charging STELCO Rf1.92 per unit. “Therefore we will be able to maintain electricity prices as they were when we came into government,” he said. Electricity rates were increased last week from Rf1.60 per unit to Rf2.25 for the first 100 units – a 40 per cent hike.
Chris Goodall, a British environmentalist who helped draw up the carbon neutral plan, described the project to Minivan News as “absolutely tremendous”, adding the Maldives would be producing six times more wind power per head than in the UK.
Goodall also said the farm would supply around 40 per cent of the country’s electricity, taking the Maldives one-fifth of the way closer to achieving carbon neutrality.
“This is a wonderful achievement for all concerned and I understand the government has more negotiations going on,” he wrote in an email. “I hope this announcement will show the rich countries at Copenhagen what one small middle-income state can achieve if it is determined enough.”
This December, world leaders will congregate in Denmark to thrash out a successor to the Kyoto Protocol. Discussions so far have stalled with developing countries urging rich, industrialised nations to pledge drastic cuts in emissions and the latter reluctant to commit.
Speaking today, the president said he envisaged the Maldives as a carbon neutral country in 2008, despite not having the support, even from members of his own party, who believed the idea to be far-fetched. “What we are doing today matches word to word, inch to inch, dot to dot, comma to comma to what we initially thought in June 2008,” he said.
At the ceremony, Zahir Mohamed, the managing director of STELCO, said the wind farm would serve both as a source of renewable energy to the most demanding region of the country but as a monument to the Maldives.
“We are pleased to be a part of this major project in renewable energy. We are committed to diversify electricity generation to renewable energy and to make the Maldives a carbon neutral country within a decade,” he said.
"What we are trying to do is say that renewable energy works," Nasheed said. "I’m saying it can be done everywhere."
The archipelago, the world’s lowest lying nation and at substantial threat from rising sea levels, has become an important voice in the fight against climate change ahead of international talks in Copenhagen next month.
The nation of 1,192 coral islands is heavily dependent on oil imports to fuel generators and is increasingly reliant on energy-intensive desalination plants.
The $200 million wind power project, to be built by General Electric by mid-2011, will create a farm of 30 large wind turbines 65 kilometers (40 miles) north of the capital, Male, government officials said.
Underwater cables will connect the wind farm with Male, where more than 100,000 people live, and surrounding islands, as well as 24 resort islands, according to Falcon Energy, which is managing the project.
The wind turbine facility on a small islet just north of the capital Male is expected to be completed within 20 months, an official said, adding that it would supply more than half the nation’s electricity needs.
Maldivian President Mohamed Nasheed said the setting up of the 75-megawatt farm would reduce emissions by 25 per cent in his low-lying atoll nation of 330,000 Sunni Muslims. ‘We are doing this because we have an environment conscience and it is economical to do so,’ Mr Nasheed said.
The build-own-and-operate project is being run by the British-based Falcon Energy company.
Mr Nasheed, whose cabinet met underwater last month in a stunt aimed at highlighting the Maldives’ vulnerability to rising sea levels, said he wanted the country to be a showcase for renewable and clean energy.
In 2007, the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warned that an increase in sea levels of just 18 to 59 centimetres (seven to 24 inches) would make the Maldives virtually uninhabitable by 2100. More than 80 per cent of the tiny nation, famed as a tourist paradise because of its secluded beaches, coral reefs and white-sand beaches, is less than a metre (three feet four inches) above sea level.
The wind turbine facility on a small islet just north of the capital Male is expected to be completed within 20 months, an official said, adding that it would supply more than half the nation’s electricity needs.
Maldivian President Mohamed Nasheed said the setting up of the 75-megawatt farm would reduce emissions by 25 percent in his low-lying atoll nation of 330,000 Sunni Muslims. "We are doing this because we have an environment conscience and it is economical to do so," Nasheed said.
The build-own-and-operate project is being run by the British-based Falcon Energy company. Nasheed, whose cabinet met underwater last month in a stunt aimed at highlighting the Maldives’ vulnerability to rising sea levels, said he wanted the country to be a showcase for renewable and clean energy.
In 2007, the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warned that an increase in sea levels of just 18 to 59 centimetres (seven to 24 inches) would make the Maldives virtually uninhabitable by 2100. More than 80 percent of the tiny nation, famed as a tourist paradise because of its secluded beaches, coral reefs and white-sand beaches, is less than a metre (three feet four inches) above sea level.
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