CEZ buys into Polish wind market

POLAND: CEZ Poland Distribution (CEZ), part of the CEZ power group that operates across central and eastern Europe, has announced it is to buy a 67% stake in Polish wind developer Eco-Wind Construction. According to CEZ, "the transaction will be settled without delay".

by Marcin Czekanski 4 January 2012

Eco-Wind has an 889MW wind-power pipeline consisting of 24 projects. Eco-Wind’s majority shareholders are Polish listed company Trakcja Polska and its majority shareholder Spanish Comsa.

The value of the transaction is not known, but must be below PLN 75.5 million (€16.7 million) — representing 10% of Trakcja Polska’s equity — the level at which the Polish company would have had to disclose it.

CEZ owns the largest onshore wind farm in Europe, Romania’s 600 MW Fantanele project, due for completion by end-2012. Currently 300MW of the project is operational. CEZ also owns some 5MW of operational wind turbines in the Czech Republic.

The CEZ Group's target is to achieve 3GW of installed wind capacity by 2016.