OREANDA-NEWS. June 22, 2010. The Eesti Energia Supervisory Board today approved an investment decision to establish a 39 MW wind farm on a former ash field near Narva. The Balti power plant’s second ash field, which was closed and recultivated last year, will have 17 power-generating turbines in 2012, reported the press-centre of Eesti Energia.

The construction contract with Enercon, which won the turnkey tender, will be signed over the summer. Construction work will begin shortly thereafter, with the 2.3 MW turbines to be erected on the former ash field in 2011. The total cost of the wind farm is approximately 60 million euros, and the annual electricity output will be about 90 GWh.

“It is important for us to use this footprint of the oil shale energy sector as the foundation for renewable energy,” said Ando Leppiman, director of Eesti Energia’s Renewable Energy Business Unit. “For Eesti Energia it will mean doubling  electricity generated from wind compared to the current annual total. The environmentally-friendly generation on Narva ash field will be enough to cover the electricity needs of about 35,000 Estonian families with average electricity consumption.”

In the summer of 2009, Eesti Energia opened at Aulea the most powerful wind farm in the Baltics. The 39 MW wind farm will gain three more turbines by the summer of 2011. The total output of the 16 turbines will be 48 MW and the annual electrical output will be a maximum of 123 GWh.

In addition, a public procurement is currently taking place for the establishment of a wind farm on the Pakri peninsula in Paldiski and it is planned to have the construction contract signed in the autumn of this year. Eesti Energia is also considering building a wind farm in the Auvere area in Vaivara municipality in extreme north-eastern Estonia and is studying options for offshore wind farms in the Gulf of Riga.

The closure of the second ash field at Balti power plant was a far-reaching environmental project, a large part of the financing for which came from the European Union Cohesion Fund. In the course of the decommissioning project, which came to an end in 2008, a new neutralization plant and a landfill for inert waste were established on the ash field (out of use since 1986), the area was recultivated and the former sedimentation pond was turned into a wetland area.