Austria’s Verbund in Talks To Buy up to 100 MW Wind Farm Project in Romania – Media

Austrian power company Verbund is in talks with developer Winstar Trading International to acquire a wind power project in southeastern Romania that would require an estimated investment of up to 150 million euro ($195 million), Bucharest-based daily Ziarul Financiar reported on Wednesday.

"We are talking about small scale projects for now. The project, which Verbund is trying to buy, will have a capacity of up to 100 megawatts (MW)," Ziarul Financiar quoted unnamed market sources as saying.

The sources said the Austrian company has also received offers from other companies, which are willing to sell in the current market conditions.

The daily said that it is difficult to estimate the amount of investments needed for such a project because prices have fallen, but according to market specialists the total investment needed for one MW of wind power capacity reaches an average of 1.5 million euro.

Ziarul Financiar (www.zf.ro) said that data from Romania’s power grid operator Transelectrica showed that Winstar Trading International together with Alfa Wind, Beta Wind and Land Power have obtained the approval to deliver 600 MW to the grid in the southeastern Tulcea county.

A recent report by Austria's Erste Bank said that Romania’s potential in wind energy is considered the highest in southeastern Europe. Erste added that the most important local investors in the wind energy sector are oil and gas group Petrom, power distributor Electrica and Blue Investments. Among the strategic investors are EDP, ENEL, Verbund and Iberdrola.

($=0.7712 euro)

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