The first two of ten wind turbines have been fully erected at the 50MW Mannar wind farm being built by HayWind One Ltd., the wind energy arm of Hayleys Fentons, with the developer saying it remains on course for grid connection by December 2026.
The milestone was reported by the Daily Mirror on 29 September and re-filed by the Daily FT on 5 October. Both carry the same company statement.
The machines
Each completed turbine reaches a tip height of about 186.5 metres. A 110-metre tower, assembled in four sections, is anchored to a piled concrete foundation with an anchor cage, foundation bolts and a high-strength grout layer. The nacelle mounted on top houses the main bearing, drive shaft, gearbox, generator and an active yaw system that keeps the rotor facing the wind, and carries the hub and three 76.5-metre blades.
Because Mannar is a coastal site, the company says all components carry marine-grade anti-corrosion coatings and filtration systems.
Lifting them into place
The erection work uses a 900-tonne crawler crane, which the company says is the largest ever deployed on a wind energy project in Sri Lanka. It was supplied by Hayleys Advantis in partnership with Sarans India. Engineers prepared the ground first with aggregate base course works, soil compaction and load-bearing tests before the crane was positioned.
Chief operating officer Prashantha Amarasinghe said each lift is restricted to wind speeds of 9.8 metres per second or below under the equipment maker’s parameters, with ground stability and wind profiles checked before every lift and heavy-duty taglines used to control each section during hoisting.
Managing director Hasith Prematillake called the first erected turbines “a defining milestone for HayWind”, and deputy managing director Roshane Perera said site crews are certified to Global Wind Organisation standards.
What it delivers
Completed, the farm will run ten 5MW turbines for 50MW of capacity and is projected to supply about 207 million units (kWh) of electricity a year to the national grid under a 20-year power purchase agreement. The company estimates that displaces around Rs. 100 billion in fossil fuel import costs over the plant’s operating life.
The figures and the December 2026 commissioning date are the developer’s own. Neither filing states the project’s capital cost, the tariff agreed under the power purchase agreement, the turbine manufacturer, or how many of the remaining eight turbines have foundations ready. This article covers the turbine-erection milestone reported on 29 September; it is a later stage of a project whose construction was launched earlier, and whose ten turbines were reported as having arrived in Sri Lanka in a previous announcement.
