An Austrian-Japanese consortium of Ivicom Consulting and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries plans to get a building permit for its wind farm in Montenegro next year and bring it on stream by 2013, Montenegrin media reported on Tuesday.
Montenegro signed a contract with the consortium in August for a 20-year land concession and the construction of a 50 megawatt (MW) wind farm in the Krnovo area, in the central municipality of Niksic. The contract contains an option for an increase in the farm's capacity by 22 MW.
The investor has enough money to complete the job on time unless there are some administrative glitches in obtaining a construction permit, daily Vijesti (www.vijesti.com) reported, quoting Krnovo Green Energy (KGE), the company set up by the consortium to operate the project.
If the power transmission system of the country cannot accommodate all 72 MW of wind generators, the investor could abandon the project as it would not pay off, KGE official Radomir Vulikic told the daily.
He added the project is worth between 100 and 110 million euro, which includes the construction of 30 wind turbines, powerlines, some twenty kilometers of roads and a transformer.
“The construction works alone will cost 30 million euro,” Vulikic said, adding that the farm would require a maintenance crew of around 20.
“In January, we submitted a request for a connection to the power grid and were informed that it should be approved in the first half of June,” Vulikic said.
Under the concession contract, the state will buy the electricity the farm will produce in the first 12 years at a fixed price of 95.99 euro per megawatthour, Vijesti said.
This is the second wind farm concession contract that Montenegro has signed.
Last year, it hired a consortium led by Spanish-based Fersa Energias Renovables to build a 75 million euro 46 MW wind farm in the Mozura location close to the Adriatic town of Ulcinj.
Last month, local media reported that Fersa plans to build the farm comprising 23 wind turbines by the end of 2012 at the latest.
($=0.7041 euro)
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