German utility buys windfarms in Spain and Portugal
DUSSELDORF, Germany, August 15, 2007. E.ON will spend Euro 722 million to increase its installed wind capacity to 700 MW.
It will purchase Energi E2 Renovables Ibéricas from Danish utility Dong Energy. Currently, E2-I generates electricity in Spain and Portugal from 260 MW of green power facilities, most of which is wind with small amounts of hydropower and biomass plants.
Additional windfarms with 560 MW of capacity are being planned at favourable locations on the Iberian peninsula, and are expected to be commissioned within the next four years. With the new windfarms, E.ON will have total generation capacity of 7 GW in Spain by 2010, combined with the Viesgo and Endesa assets that E.ON has agreed to buy from ENEL and Acciona.
“Energi E2 Renovables Ibéricas ideally supplements our future activities in Spain,” says Wulf Bernotat of EON. “Wind power will play an important role in our future energy mix. It is CO2-neutral and can be used economically with the aid of modern, efficient plants at wind-exposed sites.”
“The windfarms are of outstanding quality with superb load factors and favourable regulatory regimes, and the projects being developed are also very promising,” he adds. “By acquiring E2-I, we are making a decisive step towards occupying a leading position in Europe in the wind power sector, too.”
E.ON will expand its green power activities in coming years, and will pool all its renewable energy operations (except large hydroelectric) with international climate protection projects. It will invest Euro 3 billion by 2010 in renewables, and the acquisition of E2-I is the first major project in this context, it explains. Further offshore wind projects are being planned, including the world’s largest windfarm with 1,000 MW of capacity in the Thames estuary in England, which E.ON is setting up with other partners.
“By expanding renewable energies and building more efficient power stations, E.ON intends to contribute to climate protection,” the company notes. By 2030, it wants to halve its CO2 emissions from generation against 1990 levels and the company supports the EU target of generating 20% of primary energy from renewables by 2020.
In addition to the offshore London Array off the south coast of England, which will power 750,000 homes and displace the emission of 1.9 Mt of carbon, EON is building the 180 MW Robin Rigg windfarm which will be the largest offshore windfarm in the UK when it becomes operational in 2009.
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