Daehan Wind Power Company

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   IFC is considering a loan of up to $26.7 million to Daehan Wind Power Company (the Company), a special purpose vehicle incorporated in Jordan, and currently owned by Korea Southern Power Company (KOSPO, 50% +1 share) and Daelim Energy Co. (50% -1 share together the Sponsors). The Daehan Wind project consists of the construction, operation and maintenance of a 51.75 MW (installed capacity) MW wind farm in Jordan’s Tafila Governorate. The project will be an independent power producer, generating around 153 GW/h (net) annually for sale to the National Electric Power Company (NEPCO) under a 20-year power purchase agreement. Financial close is expected in the last quarter of 2017 and construction is currently expected to last for around 16 months, i.e. until circa mid-2019. Turbine supplier Vestas will be the Engineering, Procurement and Construction (EPC) contractor and will provide Operations and Maintenance (O&M) for the equipment. The Sponsors are expected to provide the Balance of Plant O&M works. The project consists of 15 Vestas model V136, 3.45 MW turbines, with a tower hub height of 112 m and rotor diameter of 136 m, a 33kV / 132kV substation, a buried internal 33 kV grid network and a network of site access roads. The new NEPCO transmission line to which the project will interconnect is expected to be around 18 km long and will link a 132 kV substation in the town of Tafila with a substation at Jordan Wind Power Company’s (JWPC’s) 117 MW Tafila wind farm located south of the project site. This transmission line will be constructed by NEPCO to improve grid stability in the town of Tafila irrespective of whether the project is developed. In addition to supporting the JWPC and Daehan wind farms, the NEPCO line will also support Xenel’s proposed 49.5 MW Abour wind farm which will be located nearby. As such, the transmission line is not considered an associated facility under Performance Standard (PS) 1. It is estimated that the project will require around 70 workers during the 16 month construction phase; no workers camp will be established, with workers being either sourced locally or accommodated in nearby hotels and guest houses. Ten staff will be employed on site during the operations phase. The project site is located within Bseira District in Tafila Governorate. The closest communities include (i) Um Sarab and Bseira which are located at distances of 1 and 3 km from the western site boundary, respectively; (ii) Gharandal, located 1.3 km to the south, and (iii) Ain Baida, located 4 km north west of the site. The site is at an altitude of roughly 1400 m, about 10 km from the eastern margin of the Rift Valley in Jordan’s Sharah Mountains – also known as the Southern Uplands - roughly 130 km south of Amman.  Dana Biosphere Reserve is located around 7.5 km to the south west of the site and the closest boundary of the Dana Important Bird Area (IBA), which encompasses the Reserve, is located around 3 km away. The site is around 3.5 km north east of Jordan Wind Power Company’s (JWPC’s) operating 117 MW Tafila wind farm (IFC project 31627, the Environmental & Social (E&S) review summary of which can be viewed here: https://disclosures.ifc.org/#/projectDetail/ESRS/31627) and around 3 km south west of the planned 49.5 MW Abour wind farm to be developed by Xenel (IFC project 35348, the E&S review summary of which can be viewed here: https://disclosures.ifc.org/#/projectDetail/ESRS/35348 ). Other potential future wind farm project developers in this area include LAMSA (99 MW), Korea Electric Power Corporation (KEPCO, 90 MW), and Mass Holdings (100 MW). It is unclear at this point how many of these projects will materialize.    The project area is hilly and rocky, with little vegetation and scarce stony soil cover. There are no permanent dwellings or other structures within a kilometer of any turbine location, although several temporary agricultural shelters are dotted around the site and wheat is grown seasonally on certain parcels. The nearest receptors include homes in Um Sarab settlement which are located around 1 km to the west of the nearest turbines. The company has signed most land lease agreements with the owners of project-affected land parcels as of end July 2017, and plans to complete the leasing of all remaining parcels needed in the coming months, following site layout finalization in July 2017. Around 64 parcels of private land will be leased for the project on a voluntary basis, i.e. without the possibility of expropriation. None of the landowners reside on site. No Government land is being acquired. Semi-nomadic Bedouin use parts of the site during spring and early summer (April – June) for seasonal grazing purposes and may establish temporary tented accommodation within or nearby to site. The project included Bedouin in the stakeholder engagement process. Experience from the operating Tafila wind farm nearby indicates that wind farm-related impacts on this group will be minimal.