Olavarría Wind Farm (P.E. Olavarría) — wind generation (GEAR I / PCR + ArcelorMittal Acindar)

The national grid: the line reaches the 500/132 kV Olavarría substation, which belongs to TRANSBA, and comes in through Bay No. 04 that the carrier already had commissioned. The final connection is an underground cable buried inside TRANSBA's site.

The lead lender's release describes it as «the construction of a 25 km transmission line connecting the wind farm to the Olavarría substation». The environmental permit spells out the connection: «the connection to the 500/132 kV Olavarría substation (TRANSBA) using Bay No. 04, commissioned by TRANSBA, where the Stage 1 high-voltage line will arrive. The final connection to that substation will be made with an underground high-voltage cable, buried inside TRANSBA's site».

The wind farm and whatever comes next: the environmental permit itself says that infrastructure «will allow the connection of 214 MW of installed capacity», more than the first batch of machines will inject, and that Stage II adds a second line and an extra bay at the Olavarría substation.

Verbatim from the environmental permit: «The Querandíes Substation (ET QUR) will be built, at 132/33/13.2 kV, with double busbar, 2 transformer bays of 120 MVA, 1 line bay, 1 spare bay and 1 bus coupler bay. This infrastructure will allow the connection of 214 MW of installed capacity, corresponding to 36 turbines of the Olavarría Wind Farm – Stage I». It includes «complementary civil works (foundations, structures, earthing grid, lighting, access roads, perimeter fencing and a divider between the generator's and the carrier's areas)». The addendum in the file «reduces the capacity of each transformer by 16.67%».

The whole system, not the wind farm: these are works inside high-voltage transmission substations, on a corridor linking the country's best wind region with its largest consumption centre. Privately financed and operated by the system.

The lender's release says the project includes «the expansion and upgrading of capacitors at the Olavarría and Ezeiza substations», on the Bahía Blanca-Abasto high-voltage corridor, which «connects a region with best-in-class wind resources to the country's largest demand center». ⭐ And what makes it a precedent rather than one more piece of work: «The project is the country's first renewable energy generation initiative to incorporate privately financed transmission infrastructure integrated into the Argentine Interconnection System (SADI)». The Dutch development bank adds what it is for: those investments «are essential to maintaining 100% dispatch priority and enabling the integration of additional renewable capacity into Argentina's grid».

Farmland in the area: access is via a municipal rural road that has to be upgraded «to the specifications required for trucks, cranes and other vehicles», and that improvement stays once construction ends. The internal roads keep being used afterwards, for wind farm maintenance.

Verbatim from the environmental permit: «Access to the site will be via the rural road "Camino Sec. 78-05", which will be upgraded to the specifications required for the traffic of trucks, cranes and other vehicles used in erection and later in wind farm maintenance»; «20312 metres of 7-metre-wide roads and 4870 metres of 4-metre-wide roads will be worked on, for a total of 16.2 ha affected. In addition, 13 ha of pre-existing rural roads will be upgraded». Total civil works occupy 58.20 ha, 0.98% of a 5,941 ha site: the rest of the land keeps producing.