While the debate goes on whether to move forward on the Cape Wind energy project in this country, the Europeans seem poised to leave those efforts in the wind-swept dust.
BusinessWeek.com reports Spain-based Iberdrola SA will build the world’s largest onshore wind-energy project in Romania, a $2-billion project that will produce 1,500 megawatts of capacity … five times bigger than Europe’s largest wind complex and three times bigger than the Massachusetts offshore wind project:
Iberdrola, which became the world’s biggest wind-farm owner by using government incentives and charging above-market electricity rates for clean energy, now operates in 10 markets including the U.S. and U.K. The Romanian mega-park, near its operations in neighboring Hungary, may extend the Spanish company’s lead over second-ranked wind producer FPL Group Inc. of Florida.
Romania generates much of its electricity by burning oil and gas, which can be easily scaled back during a windy day to allow for surges of power from windmills, said Will Young, a wind energy analyst at Bloomberg New Energy Finance in London.
“That makes Romania an attractive market,” Young said today in an interview. “Romania has relatively high power prices and flexible energy generation that allows power producers to feed in electricity easily.”
Iberdrola plans to build 50 wind farms in Romania, able to light up almost one million homes.