GE has signed a contract with local developer Cong Ly Company Ltd. to provide 10 of its 1.6-82.5 wind turbines and operations and maintenance services for phase one of the Bac Lieu Wind Farm, totalling 16 MW of power generation capacity.
Cong Ly Company also has plans for a second phase of the project, which would add up to 120 MW of capacity to help resolve the country’s chronic power shortages.
“This will be the first large-scale industrial/energy project in Bac Lieu province, which has huge potential in wind energy, along with agriculture and seafood farming,” said Mr. To Hoai Dan, chairman of Cong Ly Company. “We expect that the project will help to improve the social and economic conditions of the province by creating new jobs requiring technical and industrial skills, while producing much-needed power. We also hope this first large-scale wind farm project will help to attract more investments into the Bac Lieu province in the future.”
Located about 200 km southwest of Ho Chi Minh City, the Bac Lieu project will be the first wind farm in the Mekong Delta. It will be designed to help protect the environment of the region, which is known as the “rice basket” of the country and accounts for the largest proportion of Vietnam’s seafood exports.
The GE wind turbines chosen for this project feature an 82.5 meter rotor for class III wind conditions, rendering it a good match, says its maker, for the Bac Lieu site. I
n 2009, GE established a new manufacturing plant near the seaport city of Hai Phong. The facility produces wind turbine components, and the first wind turbine generators built there were shipped in May of 2010.
