Developing performance-based design for foundation systems of WIND turbines in AFRICA (WindAfrica)

Half of Africa’s population lacks electricity, yet the continent holds 35% of the world’s wind energy resources—and the soil beneath proposed turbines is the hidden obstacle. Wind turbines need deep, stable foundations, but most African wind sites sit in tropical zones where groundwater levels swing wildly between wet and dry seasons. That cycling leaves the soil unsaturated for months at a time. Unsaturated soils behave unpredictably: their mechanical strength changes with water content, and current foundation design codes do not account for this. Engineers cannot reliably predict how a turbine base will perform when the ground beneath it is neither fully wet nor fully dry. This research will develop performance-based design rules specifically for wind turbine foundations in unsaturated tropical soils. If successful, it will give engineers a practical, evidence-based method to size and build foundations that remain stable through seasonal water-level changes. That could unlock wind farm development across large parts of sub-Saharan Africa, directly addressing the region’s electricity gap. The work is applied and location-specific—it does not claim to solve all wind energy challenges—but it tackles a concrete, overlooked bottleneck that currently blocks infrastructure investment.