Germany: ABO Wind focuses on new countries

ABO Wind is successfully expanding business activities in new countries. Currently, Iran offers the most promising perspectives. "We have concluded several cooperation agreements with regional partners," says Managing Director Dr. Jochen Ahn. ABO Wind is now recruiting local employees and has recently opened a new subsidiary in Teheran. This is ABO Wind's second non-European office location besides Buenos Aires.

ABO Wind is active in Germany and six other European countries. So far, the German-based project developer has connected a total wind energy capacity of 1,100 megawatts to the European grid. In 2015, the company founded a new department for international business development that works from the company's headquarters in Wiesbaden. Under the supervision of Dr. Karsten Schlageter, a team of experienced project managers is monitoring countries worldwide in order to assess potential new markets for ABO Wind. Some of the relevant criteria to be considered for each country are the structure of the electricity market, expansion targets for renewable energies, wind conditions, and legal frameworks.

With the help of other specialized departments such as financing, grid connection and site assessment, the specialists have identified several countries that seem most promising. "Our task is now to develop fitting market entry strategies for each country," says Dr. Karsten Schlageter, head of the department. "We are doing very well in Iran." Schlageter says this is due to the many years of isolation of this country: "For almost ten years, Iran suffered from the Western sanctions because of their nuclear policy. The nuclear deal and the following lifting of the sanctions now ignites strong social and economic dynamics."

This also concerns the energy policy. With a population of around 75 Million inhabitants and an area of about 1.6 million square kilometers, Iran is ranked among the 20 most populated and largest states of the earth. The country has a very strong interest in developing sustaining renewable energies. The produced oil is mainly meant for exportation. To cover the increasing energy consumption of the growing population, the government wants to develop more on renewables. So far, only around 350 megawatts have been connected to the grid. The Iranian government has set the goal to add another another 4,500 megawatts of wind energy capacity by 2018.

But some hurdles have to be overcome in order to achieve this goal. So far, there are no international banks financing wind energy projects in Iran. New structures have to be established to fit environmental impact assessment and grid connection requirements to international standards.

"We want to help wind energy in Iran to a breakthrough," says Dr. Karsten Schlageter. The premises are good: Iran guarantees a fixed feed-in tariff for wind energy and supports the development of renewables with binding regulations. Electric grids and infrastructure are already well-developed. ABO Wind contributes the expertise from 20 years of working successfully in the renewable energy sector. The experience as well as contacts to manufacturers, banks and investors are in high demand at the Persian Gulf. In cooperation with regional partners, ABO Wind already pre-registered wind energy projects with a capacity of around 350 Megawatt and founded several project corporations.

On this website, ABO Wind reports on the company's activities in Iran.