AES Invests in European Wind Power
Arlington Firm Buys Stakes in Projects in France, Bulgaria
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, October 19, 2006; Page D04
AES Corp. said yesterday that it bought minority stakes in a French wind-farm developer, InnoVent SAS, and in a Bulgarian wind project.
The deals continue the expansion by the Arlington power company into wind projects. AES entered the wind business in 2004, and it has 600 megawatts operating and 200 megawatts under construction.
The company would not disclose the amount it paid for either of the stakes.
InnoVent has several projects in development and expects to add 50 to 100 megawatts of wind-power generation every year for the next five years. That will mean wind farms with 25 to 50 turbines each, mostly in the breezier north of France, said Ned Hall, president of AES Wind Generation.
If all the projects proceed, at the end of five years, AES and InnoVent would generate enough power for a city roughly half the size of the District.
InnoVent, founded in 2001, has constructed seven small wind farms in France. Hall said AES was seeking an experienced partner with an established pipeline of projects.
In Bulgaria, AES has bought a stake in a 120-megawatt wind project near the Black Sea in the northeastern part of the country. AES, which is also building a conventional $1.4 billion power plant in Bulgaria, is already the biggest foreign investor in the country.
"We've been able to use the relationship we'd established already," Hall said.
In both cases, the wind projects will benefit from long-term purchase agreements, Hall said. In the first 50-megawatt project in France, the government will pay an undisclosed fixed price through the utility, the EDF Group, for 10 years. In Bulgaria, the utility company made a similar 10-year deal to buy power from the wind project, he said. He added that the Bulgarian project would qualify for carbon dioxide credits, which it will be able to sell to European industries operating under the continent's "cap-and-trade" system that allocates limited rights for greenhouse-gas emissions.
