Sainshand wind farm achieves financial close, Mongolia

The 55MW Sainshand wind farm, located 7km west of Sainshand in Mongolia’s Gobi Desert, has successfully achieved financial close. Mott MacDonald was lenders’ technical, environmental and social advisor during the scheme’s financing stage and will now monitor construction and operations in an ongoing role.

Consisting of 25 2.2MW Vestas wind turbine generators, the renewable energy generated by the Sainshand wind farm will be transmitted to an on-site substation. There, the voltage will be increased from 35kV to 110kV by a transformer before being transported to the grid connection point via a 4km transmission line. Once operational, the wind farm is expected to generate approximately 190,000MWh of electricity per year, enough to power 130,000 homes.

Mott MacDonald’s due diligence pre-financial close included reviewing early stage designs, the track-record of each project participant, the project schedule and contractual arrangements, construction and operational plans, grid impact study and energy yield assessment. The consultancy also undertook environmental and social impact assessments and analysed how the corresponding plans would feed into the financial model.

Matthias Vinard, Mott MacDonald’s project director, said: “Under its national power policy, Mongolia is aiming for a 20% renewable share of the energy mix by 2020 and 30% by 2030. Sainshand will help to diversify the country’s energy sources, reducing dependence on coal and decreasing CO₂emissions by up to five million tons over its lifetime.”

“Sainshand will be the country’s third commercial-scale wind farm and our experience on the first two has been significantly useful in understanding the country-specific challenges being faced, such as grid integration,” Matthias added.

The Sainshand wind farm is expected to become operational in the first half of 2019.