After years of growth across borders, particularly in France and Great Britain, Getting very reopens the season of investments in renewables in Italy. Through the subsidiary Erg Power Generation, the group has subscribed a three-year framework agreement with Vestas, a wind turbine manufacturer. The agreement provides for the supply of wind turbines for a potential capacity of 790MW, of which over 500MW for repowering projects in Italy and the rest for projects greenfield in France and the United Kingdom. The maximum potential value of the agreement is 500 million euros.
The signature came at the end of a tender that saw the participation of the main turbine manufacturers on the European market. The agreement with Vestas does not only concern the supply, but also the transport, installation and maintenance in the first phase of the wind turbines' life.
“The agreement with Vestas, our historic partner, will guarantee coverage of our development plan under competitive conditions and with the latest generation technologies – commented Luca Bettonte, CEO of Erg – This partnership reflects our strategy of sustainable procurement, marked by a careful selection of vendors also on the basis of shared principles for long-term sustainable development”.
In Italy, the project market greenfield is saturated, but the space for operations repowering It is huge. As regards the initiative launched by Erg, these interventions consist in acting on the wind farms already active by replacing the turbines with more powerful wind turbines. Those of Vestas, in particular, are of the latest generation and allow you to double the power. All of this, however, without taking up an extra centimeter of soil.
In business plan of Erg 2018-2021 repowering projects were already entered for 400 million, “that they could get to about a billion – said Bettonte in an interview with Business and Finance – if we carried out the repowering of our entire wind fleet prepared for this type of intervention”.
These operations were blocked since 2013, when the Spalma-incentives decree had introduced the rule whereby operators who had not adhered to the dilution were prevented from repowering their plants. Now however, thanks to a rule contained in the Simplifications decree – converted into law on 11 September – the situation has unblocked itself and important prospects are opening up for Italian repowering.
