Mongolia doesn’t seem like the kind of place you’d find spinning wind turbines, but an aging population and a growing dependency on coal-fired plants means the Asian nation is a solid candidate for a wind farm.
Clean Energy Asia, a joint venture of Japan’s SB Energy Corp. and Mongolia’s own Newcom LLC, both of which are clean energy technology companies, is in the process of constructing a 50MW wind farm in southern Mongolia. Operations for the Tsogttsetsii wind farm are scheduled to launch in December 2017.
The project, Clean Energy Asia said, will contribute to sustainable economic development, as well as the mitigation of climate change.
Mongolia has a power-supply capacity of 1,130MW, comprised of 88 percent coal, 6 percent diesel, 6 percent renewable energy, and 2 percent hydropower sources, according to Mongolia’s Department of Energy.
“While being the world’s eighth country most susceptible to climate change, electricity supply-demand balance along with its economic growth is an urgent issue for Mongolia,” said Clean Energy Asia.
“Accordingly, Mongolia is a country that particularly requires safe and secure power sources such as renewable energy. The State Great Khural approved a national power policy in 2015 that sets Mongolia’s mid-to-long-term target and plan for 2015-2030 in the energy sector. The policy aims to increase the power generation share of renewable energy to 20 percent by 2020 and 30 percent by 2030, and it stipulates the promotion of investment in the energy industry in cooperation with international financial institutions and donor countries, utilizing the abundant wind and solar resources in the Gobi region.”
