CWP Global's arm Dobrotich Wind plans to invest 614 mln euro in wind park in Bulgaria

The wind park will be able to produce enough energy to meet the needs of 440,000 households witn its turbines of up to 8 MW of generating capacity each, Dobrotich Wind said in a press release.

There will be 50 turbines installed in six villages in the Valchi Dol municipality, and a further 24 in five villages in the Vetrino municipality.

The project will not be financed through EU grants, state investments or preferential electricity purchase prices, the company added.

"The area was chosen for its combination of very good wind potential, low environmental risk and the availability of suitable electricity transmission infrastructure. The project will be implemented with the most recent wind generators, using the latest and most advanced technologies," Dobrotich Wind said in the statement.

Dobrotich Wind's investment proposal also foresees long-term energy assistance for some 14,000 local residents, which would cover the aggregate consumption of 1,200 KWh per year for a period of 35 years from the wind farm's commissioning date.

The investor projects that activities proposed under the potential investment could make direct contributions of over 15 million levs to the local municipal budgets during the wind farm's lifetime including through education and training programmes, energy and road infrastructure repairs and upgrades as well as funds to cover street lighting in the territories where the generators are installed.

"In addition, we have allowed for a possible indexation of electricity prices for domestic consumers in future, and in the event of price increases we are ready to cover up to 500 levs per year in household electricity bills," Dobrotich Wind managing director Biliana Petrova said in the statement.

CWP Global has been developing large-scale renewables projects in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) since 2010. The company's European arm has completed the installation of 158 MW of wind parks in Serbia and 600 MW in Romania, and has 3,000 MW of renewables in the pipeline in Bulgaria, Serbia and Romania.

As of end-2021, Bulgaria had 701 MW of installed wind capacity, according to the Electricity System Operator (ESO). The national plan for electricity grid development in 2022-2031 foresees the installation of energy projects with a total capacity of 5,881 MW, of which 4,858 MW will come from renewables. Out of those, 343 MW are projected to be from wind.

In April, the Bulgarian Wind Energy Association called for increasing projected wind capacity for 2026-2031 to 4,500 MW to better reflect alleged investment proposals as well as strong potential investor interest.

At present, Bulgaria's largest wind park is the 52-turbine, 156-MW St. Nikola wind farm, owned by AES Bulgaria, which is located near the town of Kavarna, in northeastern Bulgaria.

CWP and commodity group Mercuria Energy Trading teamed up for the CWP Europe joint venture last year, signalling a potential investment of over 1 billion levs into renewable energy projects in Bulgaria.

(1 euro = 1.95583 levs)