December 7 (SeeNews) - AES Geo Energy, a joint venture between U.S. power group AES and Bulgarian-German joint venture Geo Power, plans to complete a wind farm project worth over 300 million euro ($438.4 million) in northeastern Bulgaria in 2009, a company official said on Friday.
The wind farm will have 53 turbine units with a three-megawatt capacity each, Nadja Zelyova, AES external affairs manager for Bulgaria, told SeeNews.
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The wind park will be built on farmland near the town of Kavarna, on the Black Sea. The company plans to start the project next year.
"The total investment in the wind energy project amounts to over 300 million euro and the expected annual electricity output will exceed 450 [gigawatthours] GWh," the company said in a statement.
The company previously said the investment would cost 170 million euro but provided no details on the increase. AES Geo Energy has signed a preliminary agreement with the Bulgarian national power grid operator NEK for the interconnection of the planned capacity and is now working on the power purchase agreement for the produced power, it added in the statement.
"The development of this wind energy farm is part of the global AES strategy for development of wind energy projects in Europe and particularly in markets with expected high future growth," AES country manager in Bulgaria Peter Lithgow said in the statement.
The development of alternative energy resources in Bulgaria has gained momentum since the early closure of two reactors at the country's sole nuclear power plant 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.
AES (www.aes.com), one of the world's largest power companies, has operations in 28 countries worldwide and launched in June last year the construction of a 1.02 billion euro 670-megawatt coal-fired power plant at the state-owned Maritsa East coal-mining and electricity-producing complex, which generates some 30% of the country's electricity output.
($ = 0.6844 euro)