Romania - Further giant wind power investments

GE Energy, the energy equipment division of General Electric, says the next few years will see more contracts signed of similar value to that which won the company the right to deliver wind turbines for the 1.1 billion-euro CEZ wind farm in Dobrogea (SE Romania).

"If we consider the two stages of the CEZ wind farm taken together - it can be regarded as one of the most important contracts sealed in Romania so far," says Rod Christie, president of GE Energy for Central and Eastern Europe, Russia and CIS.

GE Energy has recently won a contract to deliver 101 wind turbines for the farm that CEZ will be building in Cogealac, with the Americans also winning the first stage of the auction, which consisted in the delivery of 139 turbines for the farm in Fantanele. According to company representatives, the first part of the contract was worth 600 million dollars (around 410 million euros), with market sources saying the Americans will receive around 300 million euros for the second part.

The farm that the Czechs will make operational in 2011, and which will be capable of generating 600 MW, will be Europe's largest onshore wind farm.

"Around 100 GE employees and subcontractors, from service technicians to project managers and engineers, are present in Fantanele, working on the construction stage currently underway. They come from countries such as Germany, Brazil, and the US, where our plants are, but also from Romania," says the GE Energy representative, adding that the group will also build a service centre close to the two wind farms in Fantanele and Cogealac.

"At present, less than 1% of Romania's energy is wind-generated. At the end of 2008, Romania had a 10-MW installed wind power capacity out of the around 65,000-MW overall installed wind power capacity in the EU," says Christie. According to European statistics cited by the GE Energy representative, it is precisely this lack of investments in wind power that creates the premises for future contracts with a similar value to be concluded between CEZ and GE Energy.

For more information please contact Trevor Sievert at ts@windfair.net