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Selection of a short list of bidders to develop two wind farms with a combined generating capacity of 200 MW will not be final for at least another month, according to the Moroccan Office National de l'Electricite (ONE), which issued the tender. Some 50 companies have responded to the request for proposals for the construction of a 140 MW wind farm at Tangiers on the straits of Gibraltar and a 60 MW project in the south at Tarfaya. The total investment is expected to be $200 million. Meanwhile, building is underway of a $64 million, 50.4 MW wind plant near Tétouan, 50 kilometres east of Tangiers (“uåX˜äŠÊ˜·³Ç, December 1997). Many of the towers for the 84, 600 kW Vestas turbines are now in place, and 25 machines are on site, says Briem Tiai of ONE. The commissioning is planned for August. The project is being developed by a French consortium comprising Compagnie Eolienne du Détroit, with stakes held by utility Electricité de France, Paribas Bank and wind engineering consultants Germa. Jean-Michel Germa and his company, La Compagnie du Vent, is an active wind developer in France with strong links to Danish Vestas. ONE is committed to buying electricity from the Tétouan plant for 20 years. In a third project, ONE has also ordered seven, 500 kW turbines from German Enercon, also to be located at Al Koudia Al Baida alongside the 50 MW Vestas project. Enercon bid for the Moroccan project back in 1997 as part of a consortium with ABB Calor Emag Schaltanlagen (electrical switch gear), based in Mannheim, Germany, and a Moroccan civil works company. The Enercon consortium was awarded the project in autumn 1999 and hopes to have the turbines in operation after the summer.