RWE Innogy to build fourth wind farm in Poland

In Nowy Staw, near the city of Gdansk, the first construction vehicles will soon arrive on site, marking the start of construction for Innogy’s fourth wind farm in Poland. 19 wind turbines manufactured by REpower Systems SE with an overall installed capacity of 39 megawatts (MW) will be built over an area of 15 square kilometres. If everything goes according to schedule, the wind farm will be commissioned as early as the beginning of 2013 and will supply an equivalent of more than 50,000 homes with green electricity every year. The investment volume amounts to more than € 60 million.

“With Nowy Staw we are expanding our wind portfolio in Poland by almost 40 MW. This will bring us a great step closer to our goal of adding 50 MW of wind capacity in Poland every year until 2015. Our Polish wind pipeline is well filled. All in all, Innogy plans to have around 300 MW in operation in Poland by 2015”, said Prof. Fritz Vahrenholt, CEO of RWE Innogy.

Andreas Nauen, CEO of REpower Systems SE, commented: “With Nowy Staw we are implementing our largest project in Poland so far. The site in the north of the country with its average wind velocities is optimally suited to accommodate the REpower MM92 turbines. To date, we have installed more than 2,000 plants of the MM series all over the world. We are delighted that RWE Innogy has put its trust in our proven technology and has once again chosen REpower as supplier.”

RWE Innogy is already operating three wind farms with a total capacity of approx. 108 MW in Poland: Suwalki, Tychowo and Piecki. Apart from the actual construction work on site, the company will also develop the local infrastructure around Nowy Staw. This includes repair and modernisation work as well as the building of three kilometres of new roads which becomes necessary due to the wind farm construction. The next development stage for the onshore wind farm Nowy Staw has already been planned for 2013.

Electricity generation from renewable sources is currently supported via a system of “green certificates“ in Poland. Electricity suppliers are obliged to offer a certain percentage of the energy fed into the grid from renewables. They can comply with this obligation by acquiring additional “green certificates”.