The official inauguration ceremony of the Olen wind farm was held on Thursday, October 20, attended by Flemish Minister of Energy Bart Tommelein. The wind farm, located to the south of the Bocholt-Herentals canal, comprises four wind turbines with a total capacity of 14 MW.

This project, like various others, forms part of ENGIE Electrabel’s ambition to remain the leading player in the energy transition and consolidate its position as the biggest green electricity generator. By 2020, our company intends to double the wind power capacity it had in 2014, to take it to a total of 400 MW.

The Umicore-Aurubis Belgium wind farm

The new Olen wind farm comprises four wind turbines, each with a capacity of 3.5 MW: two of them at the Umicore site, and the other two at the Aurubis Belgium site. With a height of 200 metres, they are the tallest to be built on industrial sites in Belgium, and they can generate some 28 million kWh in all, so enough to cover the consumption of 8,000 households.

The wind farm was built and will be operated and maintained by Wind4Flanders, a 50/50 partnership between ENGIE Electrabel, the financing associations FIGGA, FINGEM, FINILEK and IKA, and the Brussels Intermunicipal Electricity Company (IBE).

This project is a good example of cooperation between the various ENGIE Group subsidiaries. ENGIE Fabricom performed the electrical work to connect the turbines to the grid.

Aurubis and Umicore will use the energy generated, which equates to around one eighth of their electricity consumption, for their own industrial needs. As well as erecting wind turbines at the Olen site, Umicore has installed six double charging terminals for electric vehicles at some of its sites (in Hoboken and Brussels). These are the first of many to be fitted at Umicore sites in Belgium. The cooperation between ENGIE Electrabel and Umicore and Aurubis Belgium is a fine example of the companies’ firm commitment to achieving greater energy efficiency. ENGIE Electrabel is helping Umicore and Aurubis Belgium to reach this goal by making their processes even more sustainable and supporting them with their energy transition.

Electrabel CoGreen

The cooperative Electrabel CoGreen gives local residents the chance to invest in this new wind farm by purchasing member shares, meaning that they can help Belgium achieve its green energy generation goals, while benefiting from a dividend.

In 2016, a total of 35 extra wind turbines were built, and six wind farms were opened up to citizen participation via CoGreen: as well as Olen, there are those in Pathoekeweg, Ravenshout, Leeuw-Saint-Pierre, Wielsbeke and Zelzate.

Residents of Olen, Geel, Herentals, Morkhoven and Noorderwijk can buy shares in the new Olen wind farm.

As such, it was only to be expected that Olen residents and Umicore and Aurubis Belgium staff would get the opportunity to visit the brand new wind farm after the official ceremony. This was a great success, since more than six hundred visitors came to the site. They were able to see a wind turbine up close – outside and inside – and Electrabel CoGreen told them how to invest in “their” wind farm.