September 25 (SeeNews) - Bulgarian-Spanish renewable energy joint venture Eolica Bulgaria said on Tuesday it would start building an 80 million euro ($112.7 million) wind farm in northeastern Bulgaria around 2009.
"If construction begins in 2009, we expect that power generation will start at the beginning of 2010," the company's chief executive officer Ivan Delchev told a news conference.
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The company plans to build a 60 megawatt wind farm in Suvorovo, in the Black Sea region of Varna. The company has already contracted to sell the produced electricity from the wind farm to state power grid operator NETC.
"The company is committed to increase these capacities several times wthin a five-year time," Economy Minister Petar Dimitrov told the news conference.
Eolica Bulgaria is also considering manufacturing part of the equipment needed for the construction of the wind farm, Dimitrov added.
Eolica Bulgaria is a 65/35 joint venture of Spanish renewable energy company Eolica Navarra and Bulgaria's Industrial Capital Holding. Eolica Navarra (www.eolicanavarra.es), founded in 1995, designs, constructs and operates renewable energy generation plants and industrial plants. It operates wind farms in Spain, Portugal, France, the Dominican Republic, Slovakia and Poland.
The development of alternative energy resources in Bulgaria gained momentum after the early closure of two reactors at the country's sole nuclear power plant Kozloduy on December 31, 2006, under pressure from the European Union.
The country, which joined the EU in January, has to cover 11% of its gross domestic energy consumption by renewable energy sources by 2010, compared to about one percent in 2005, in order to comply with EU directives.