Vestas Lands Romanian Windfarm Contract

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Written by Martin Lynch, European News Editor for Industrial Info (Galway, Ireland) - Troubled wind turbine manufacturer, Vestas Wind Systems (OTC:VWDRY) (Randers, Denmark), has secured a 72-megawatt (MW) turbine order for one of the largest planned windfarm projects in Romania.

The company will supply 36 of its V90-2.0 MW wind turbines in the second half of 2013 to the Topolog Dorobantu windfarm in Tulcea, with the potential for another six to be delivered at a later date. The order was placed by LUKERG Renew, a joint venture between ERG Renew (Genoa, Italy) and Lukoil OAO (MCX:LKOH) (Moscow, Russia). ERG Renew is Italy's largest wind energy producer, with an installed capacity of 1,232 MW throughout Europe while LUKOIL is best known as an oil and gas company, accounting for 2.2% of the global output of crude oil.

When commissioned the Topolog Dorobantu plant will generate around 200,000 megawatt hours (MWh) annually, enough to power approximately 60,000 homes and which will also offset around 110,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2).

"The Topolog order will contribute to Romania meeting its ambitious targets as detailed in its National Renewable Energy Action Plan," noted Catalina Dragomir, Managing Director of Vestas CEU Romania. "Furthermore, with this order Vestas reinforces its position in the Romanian market as a leading player with the strongest local presence and the largest operational fleet. This is Vestas' first project with LUKERG Renew in Romania."

The order comes at a time when the Romanian government is planning to cut its support for wind, solar and small hydro renewable energy projects in an effort to prevent paying energy companies too much for clean energy. Romania's green certificate scheme has attracted billions of euros in investment for renewable energy projects in the country, particularly windfarms, but the scheme has been criticised by the European Commission (E.C.) for being too generous.

The scheme has been in place for just a year but has been blamed for increasing householders electricity bills.

In other news, Vestas continues to struggle with its global restructuring, having just lost its second chief financial officer in less than 18 months. Vestas is in the middle of a two-year overhaul in which it expects to reduce its workforce by 30% to 16,000, as well as reduce its production capacity and sell off some manufacturing facilities.

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