Austria - EVN teams up with Germany's Enetrag to build a 50 megawatt wind farm at Bulgaria's Black Sea coast

Austrian power utility EVN said it has teamed up with Germany's Enetrag to build a 50 megawatt wind farm at Bulgaria's Black Sea coast for an estimated 100 million euros ($131.3 million).

Austria's second biggest utility which will hold 70 percent in the project said in a statement the farm will become operational at the end 2009 and will be expanded later to 80 MW.

EVN has said it plans to spend about 200 million euros ($263.8 million) in the next several years to build wind farms in Bulgaria, Macedonia and Romania and boost the power it produces from renewable sources to one third from 20 percent at present.

Bulgaria, which generates more than 50 percent of its energy from coal, has to increase its share of power generated from wind and hydro power stations to 16 percent by 2020 under targets agreed by the European Union.

At present only 7.7 percent of the produced power comes from renewable sources.

For more information, please contact Trevor Sievert at ts@windfair.net