Iberdrola wins grid license for 1,500 MW of wind power in Romania

Romania had only 14 MW of wind power installed at the end of 2009. EWEA’s scenarios indicate that in 2020 the country could have up to 3,500 MW installed.

This planned output will enable the Spanish giant to generate enough wind energy in Romania to supply nearly one million households. The license will pave the way for the company to start construction between 2011 and 2017 on its 50 wind farm projects in Dobrogea, south eastern Romania.

Iberdrola Renovables is implementing all its wind turbines projects in Romania with Eolica Dobrogea, a company owned by Swiss engineering group NEK and Romanian companies C-Tech and Rokura.

The company intends to begin construction this year on its first wind facility in Romania – an 80-MW wind farm in Mihai Viteazu, Constanta county.

Romanian Wind Energy Association -AREE’s Executive Director Dana Duica is optimistic: “at the end of the year we could have already 650 MW installed”, she said. “Most importantly, we recently looked at the project pipeline to discover that we could reach 3,000 MW of wind power installed capacity in 2013. This would mean that within three years, over 7.5% of Romanian electricity demand would be covered by wind. I believe we would establish a new record growth in Europe.” According to Duica, Romania could have 5,000 MW of installed wind energy capacity by 2020.

Wind energy could provide up to 17% of EU electricity demand by 2020. This would avoid 333 million tonnes of CO2 per year, equal to 29% of the EU’s greenhouse gas reduction target. Currently the wind industry employs 192,000 people in the EU, by 2020 this number is expectede to grow to 446,000 jobs – 33 new jobs every working week from now to 2020.

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