Sihanoukville Wind Turbine Project

Powering port development with renewable energy

 

The project aims at supplying electricity to the harbour of Sihanoukville fully based on renewable energy. The port of Sihanoukville is facing a challenge to cope with the energy demands associated with planned harbour expansion. During the year 2003 and 2004 the port authority of Sihanoukville wanted to explore the possibilities of renewable energy to supply energy to the port. Due to the good contacts with the Flanders International Technical Agency, the Port Authority of Sihanoukville initiated a wind measurement in the surroundings of the port. Thanks to a transfer of technology PAS technical staff carried out the construction of the met mast and the system was operated by PAS. More than two years of measurements is now carried out in Cambodia (the first ever in the region).

The port of Sihanoukville is facing a challenge to cope with the energy demands associated with the port expansion. A new container terminal, with 400-m berth length, has been constructed. Preliminary assumptions say this will raise the power demand from the current situation (between 150 kVA and 300 kVA) to 750 kVA until 1500 kVA. Two additional heavy fuel diesel generators of 1000 kVA have been installed recently. The aim of the project is to integrate an appropriate wind turbine in the stand alone grid of the port of Sihanoukville, with an advanced control algorithm to optimise the operation of the resulting hybrid system with a sufficient penetration of wind energy and to reduce the diesel fuel usage.

A feasibility study for the installation of a wind turbine in or near the port of Sihanoukville at the west coast of Cambodia has been carried out on behalf of the Port Authority of Sihanoukville. This study investigates the potential, technical and economical feasibility for the installation of one or more wind turbines in or near the port of Sihanoukville. For the wind resource analysis, a wind measuring campaign has been performed with a mast with a tip height of 30 m. The measuring campaign started on February 8, 2003 and was stopped in February 2006. The Flemish government financed the study.

Following the initial feasibility , the project was granted a support under the Asia Pro Eco call of 2004.