The useful life of the installation ends this June and the construction of a measurement antenna has been commissioned in order to analyse the future repowering of the wind farm scientifically.
The Milà wind farm, which is coming to the end of its useful life this June, will be dismantled this year. The Department of the Environment, Biosphere Reserve and Cooperation of the Consell Insular de Menorca will soon invite tenders for this project, which is expected to be completed in 2024 at a cost of around 1,000,000 euros.
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Wind farm
“We have asked the company drafting the future repowering project for a separate section to dismantle the current park. This has to be done as soon as possible for economic and maintenance reasons, such as the lack of spare parts for obsolete parts. The viability of the fleet was practically non-existent. And, above all, it has to be done because of the danger of having an old and disused installation that could break down, as happened with the dismantled mill”, explained Simón Gornés, Menorca’s councillor for the Environment, Biosphere Reserve and Cooperation.
Next, the Consell will commission a project for the construction of a measurement antenna, which will provide information on the intensity of the wind at different heights. This information will help to know at what height the windmills to be installed in Milà really need to be. The future wind farm also contemplates the installation of a photovoltaic plant in the same area. This project will include proposals for the management of the future wind farm, the start of the environmental processing and the drafting of the necessary specifications for the future installation.
“With what is currently planned, the new park includes three windmills. But where? There can only be one on the park’s own land. A second would have to be installed on private land and the third on land owned by the Ministry of Defence. We have not found any signed agreement or pre-agreement to carry it out,” said the island’s director of the Environment, Mateu Ainsa.
“No wind farm is built without true and accurate scientific data. To obtain them, a measurement antenna has to be built. These measurements have to be taken for at least a year to be processed and to determine the optimal height of the future windmills. Without these readings, everything is guesswork and nobody will be interested in the project. It is a question of political will and we have not found anything done,” added Ainsa.
The councillor for the Environment, Biosphere Reserve and Cooperation of Menorca explained that the project for the future park will be explained at the Social Council of the Biosphere Reserve Agency, once the information provided by the anemometric antenna is available, and all the technical information necessary for the Social Council to be aware of it will be provided.
“We defend the repowering as long as there is social and political support and agreement, bearing in mind that the windmills that were planned to be built in the future are much higher, 100 metres, twice as high as the current one and, therefore, with a greater visual impact. With the information from the anemometric antenna we will be able to decide what is best for the park and how high the windmills really need to be”, concluded Gornés.