Mei Golan Wind Energy Ltd.

 

 

 

In 1992/93, Mei Golan Wind Energy Ltd., erected a 6MW wind farm on the Golan Heights of Israel, consisting of 10 Floda 600 turbines manufactured by Villas Wind Technology Ltd. of Austria each of which is rated at 600kW and installed on a 30-meter tower.  The wind farm is located 1050 meters above sea level and is connected to the regional 22kV power grid.  Since it was commissioned in 1993, the turbines have had availability in excess of 96%.

The installation of the wind farm at the site of Tel Assania was based on wind data collected in an extensive wind survey carried out in 20 sites in the Golan heights for about three years, including wind speed and direction, temperature and humidity and shear effect.

The original permit for the wind farm restricted the number of turbines at the site to ten turbines. Hence the objective of making the most of the potential of the site, required installing large turbines as large as were qualified and available at that time. 

After a survey and evaluation of Wind Turbine Generators (WTG) available at that time, the Austrian 600kW Floda variable speed WTG, the largest commercial WTG at that time was chosen. The Floda WTG characteristics are presented in Table 1.

Table 1. Floda 600 WTG characteristics 

 

 

 

In consideration of the great technological improvements of efficiency and scale of WTGs, which took place since the erection of the wind farm, and the very significant raise of the tariffs, Mei Golan has decided to increase the installed capacity from 6 MW to 12 MW by dismantling the original Floda WTG’s (still in good shape and performance) and replace them with larger, more advanced turbines, in order to utilize the potential of the site for greater production of electric power.