Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy has signed a 10-year, full-scope service contract with Aela Energia to manage end-to-end operations and maintenance for the largest Senvion fleet in Latin America featuring a total of 93 Senvion wind turbines at the Sarco (50 units) and Aurora (43 units) wind projects in Chile. The Sarco Wind Farm is located in the Municipality of Freirina, Atacama region, and has an installed capacity of 170 MW. The Aurora Wind Farm, located in the Municipality of Llanquihue, Los Lagos Region, has a nominal capacity of 129 MW.
The contract is Siemens Gamesa's first to service Senvion turbines in the Latin American market. It will add a total of 299 MW to Siemens Gamesa’s service portfolio, reaffirming the company's leadership in the region. It also strengthens Siemens Gamesa's position in multibrand servicing globally.
This win marks the tenth major Senvion service agreement that Siemens Gamesa has closed this year. The company has successfully signed service agreements for Senvion fleets in North America, Australia, Europe and now Latin America, bringing the global total to approximately 1.5 GW outside of the original Senvion service acquisition scope. In January 2020, Siemens Gamesa acquired Senvion’s European Service assets and Intellectual Property, thereby uniquely positioning the company to provide the best operations and maintenance services to the Senvion fleet both inside and outside of Europe.
"We are honored to have been selected as the trusted service partner by Aela Energia. SGRE provides optimal performance and returns for our customers’ assets due to our ownership of Senvion’s intellectual property rights and a market leading position in Chile,” said David Hickey, Service CEO Americas of Siemens Gamesa.
Aela Energia is an independent power producer (IPP) of non-conventional renewable energy, with presence in the country since 2013 with a 332-MW wind portfolio distributed throughout Chile. Aela is a joint venture between Actis (60%), a global fund aimed at investing in developing countries and Mainstream Renewable Power (40%), a global developer of renewable energy projects. The company won the lion's share of renewable energy tender contracts awarded by the Chilean government in 2015, constructing the Sarco and Aurora wind projects with Senvion wind turbines in 2019.
“2020 has been a very important year for Aela because we reached the full operational phase of two of our wind projects, Sarco and Aurora, positioning ourselves as one of the largest independent producers of renewable energy in Chile. Siemens Gamesa is a key partner to help us achieve operational excellence and continuous improvement with our assets,” said Jose Luis Muñoz, CEO Aela Energia.
As part of the full-scope service agreement, Siemens Gamesa will provide remote monitoring, supply chain access and specialty tooling, design and engineering support and software updates. The company will fully utilize the existing hardware and infrastructure on site to ensure the performance and reliability of the turbines throughout the product lifetime.