SOFIA (Bulgaria), May 26 (SeeNews) – Montenegro’s Winsol plans to shortly expand in Southeast Europe and beyond, skimming on growing public and private interest in energy efficiency products, a senior company official said.
“The company is young. We have been in the business for a year and a half but we already have a strong position in Southeast Europe and expect to very fast expand in the region,” the head of Winsol’s Serbian unit, Zoran Zivanovic, told SeeNews last month.
“I believe we will very fast enter Bulgaria, Romania, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia. I expect we will soon open an office in Italy as well,” Zivanovic said, speaking on the sidelines of the 7th Southeast European Congress on Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy held in Sofia.
Winsol, which has offices in Serbia and Greece, specialises in the design, construction, service and maintenance of renewable energy sources. It sells wind turbines from 0.2 to 20 kilowatts, photovoltaic systems, solar-thermal systems, hybrid systems, LED (light-emitting diodes) lighting and electric bicycles.
Winsol (www.winsolco.com) is a representative for Southeast Europe of leading U.S. company Semiled which manufactures LED diodes, Zivanovic said. Winsol offers replacement for all kinds of bulbs, reflectors and street lighting. Each LED bulb has a lifespan of beyond 30,000 hours and at least two years guarantee.
“We expect huge growth considering the current demand. It depends to some extent on peoples’ conscience but the economic crisis did affect them positively and they are now thinking much more about how they could cut their bills,” Zivanovic said.
According to him, Montenegro annually pays some 6.0 million euro ($8.4 million) in electricity bills for street lights but if it switches to LED lighting, the next annual bill will be below one million euro. "For a small country like Montenegro, this is really a fantastic amount." Montenegro has a population of some 600,000.
"It means in Sofia you could save some 20 million euro from street lighting. In comparison, one bridge in Belgrade costs 100 million euro,” he added.
Zivanovic said investment in such projects pays back in six to 18 months.
Winsol's success was quicker than the company expected.
“We launched our business in Serbia a few months ago and had no expectations. We planned to show it to the people, explain to them what it was about and hope they would slowly start to accept it," he said. However, the results, in his words, have been fantastic.
Energy efficiency projects easily get loans from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and local banks, Zivanovic explained.
“This technology is not cheap. It is expensive but the most important thing is that within a year your investment is paid back and in the coming five-ten-twenty years you can forget about changing bulbs and paying the large bills you now pay.”
Winsol is engaged in two projects in Greece – for a 48 MW wind park and for a 2.6 MW photovoltaic power plant.
“These plants will be ours and we will sell the electricity to the state,” Zivanovic said. “The imported electricity is more expensive and they have a lot of sun. We expect that the photovoltaic plant will be ready in August and the wind plant by the end of the year.”
He added Winsol has not yet started selling LED lighting in Greece but expects to do so very shortly.
The company also eyes the Serbian wind energy market, especially after the country connected earlier this year its first wind generators to the grid. “Of course, we do not rely only on this market. The Bulgarian, the Romanian and all the neighbouring markets are interesting for us as well.”
($=0.7107 euro)
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