RWE Innogy Opens Third Polish Windfarm

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Written by Martin Lynch, European News Editor for Industrial Info (Galway, Ireland)--The renewables arm of German energy giant RWE AG (OTC:RWEOY) (Essen, Germany) is driving ahead with its goal of installing 300 megawatts (MW) of wind power in Poland.

RWE Innogy (Essen) has just announced the commissioning of the 35 MW Tychowo onshore windfarm in Western Pomerania. The windfarm is the third Polish windfarm opened by RWE Innogy in recent years and will be capable of generating more than 70,000 MWh of electricity per year--enough to power 35,000 homes. The windfarm comprises 15 wind turbines manufactured by Siemens Energy AG (Erlangen, Germany), each with a rated capacity of 2.3 MW. RWE claimed that the Tychowo windfarm will be capable of offsetting 65,000 tons of CO2 emissions.

Alongside the company's windfarms at Suwalki and Piecki, its Polish wind generating capacity now stands at about 108 MW.

"We aim to install around 300 MW of wind power in Poland by 2015. Tychowo has taken us a big step closer to this target," said Paul Coffey, Chief Operating Officer at RWE Innogy. "Poland offers excellent sites for the development of wind energy. Economic framework conditions are also very attractive so that onshore wind power makes a significant contribution to the development of renewable energies in Poland."

The Polish government has an ambitious target of more than trebling the amount of wind power in its energy mix to 19.5% by 2020, up from 5.7% last year. Poland, like some other European countries, subsidises renewable energy projects using a system of "green certificates," whereby electricity suppliers are obliged to offer a certain percentage of the energy they generate from renewable energies or, alternatively, purchase additional green certificates. This money is used by the government to fund further green energy projects.

RWE commissioned its first windfarm in Poland in late 2009, the 41-MW Suwalki facility, which also uses 2.3 MW turbines from Siemens. RWE purchased the 32-MW Piecki windfarm in the northeast of Poland from Spain's Gamesa Corporation S.A. (MCE:GAM) (Vitoria-Gasteiz, Spain).

In related news, Spanish wind turbine manufacturer, Gamesa, has signed a deal to sell its 48-MW Pelplin windfarm in Poland to power company, PGE Energia Odnawialna. The windfarm, located in the northern Polish region of Pomorskie, uses 24 of Gamesa's G90-2MW turbines. The windfarm will be handed over after construction is completed in the first half of next year. Gamesa is currently constructing Polish projects with a combined generating capacity of 108 MW and, overall, has 677 MW of wind energy projects at different stages of development in the country.

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