Wind Energy Country Analyses Tunisia

Framework conditions for wind energy

Political Goals

Higher use of wind energy has been declared a primary goal of Tunisia’s energy development programme since 2001. In the framework of the 10th development plan, the Tunisian government has committed itself to the construction of 120 MW until 2007. This aim has not been reached until 2009.

Beyond that, the 11th development plan (covering the period of 2008 – 2011) aims at an additional installation of 200 MW by private investors on a purely competitive basis. The implementation of the 11th plan is supported by the Global Environmental Facility (GEF) Project "Private Sector Led Development of On-Grid Wind Power in Tunisia" which is being executed by the National Agency for Energy Management (ANME).47 The planned construction is to be supported by production-dependent financial assistance in the first five years of operation. Based on avoided costs of 0.037 Tunesian Dollars (TD) / kWh and 35 % availability of the wind farm, at present the additional costs are estimated at two to three US cents per kWh, about a quarter of which are to be covered by GEF funds.

Several organisations conducted, financed or promoted measurements to find possible sites for wind farms in Tunisia:

• Tunisian Society for Electricity and Gas (Société Tunisenne d'Electicité et du Gaz - STEG)
• German Society for International Cooperation (Gesellschaft für internationale Zusammenarbeit GIZ)
• Spanish Agency for International Cooperation for Development (Agencia Espanola de Cooperación Internacional para el Desarollo - AECID)
• United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)

Wind energy potential

Regions with high wind energy potential can mainly be found in the northern part of Tunisia, but also in central and southern regions. In northern and north-eastern areas, wind measurements revealed wind speeds between 7 and 10 m/s.

For example, at the Jebel Sidi Abderrahmane location in the region of Cap Bon (the peninsula in the Northwest of Tunesia close to L’Ariana), where STEG measured average wind speeds of over 10 m/s at a height of 45 m. In the region of Bizerte and Nabeul (on the southern coast of the peninsula in the Northwest of Tunesia) as well as in the central area and the Kaserine south (Tataouine, Medenine, Gabes) wind speeds exceed 7 m /sec at 60 m height (e.g. at Metline (on the northern coast close to Bizerte) with an average of 9 m /s at a height of 30 m).