Wind-fall investment

RWE Innogy, the alternative-energy arm of German RWE, will invest E100 (zł.340) million in two wind parks in the northeastern part of Poland. The wind parks will have a total capacity of 76 megawatts and will be launched in 2009. German engineering firm Siemens will construct the parks.

The parks will be located in the city of Suwałki, in the Mazury region of the Podlaskie voivodship, and in Tychowo, in the Zachodniopomorskie voivodship. They will boast 18 and 15 wind turbines, respectively, with each turbine producing 2.3 megawatts. They are expected to produce a total of 185,000 megawatt hours of electric energy annually.

The investment is part of a project by RWE, together with Polish Energy Partners, for investing in renewable energy in Poland. RWE plans to invest E1 (zł.3.4) billion in the project by 2012. "We are on the right path to build wind energy plants with a total capacity of 280 megawatts," said Filip Thon, the president of RWE in Poland.

RWE wants to build wind parks with a total capacity of 200 megawatts by 2010, located in the Mazury and Pomorze regions in northern Poland.

This type of investment will become even more common in Poland, since energy providers will have to show that a share of their energy comes from renewable resources. "This is a general trend," said Tomasz Chmal, an expert at the Sobieski Institute think-tank. He noted that energy companies will soon start competing for advantageous locations, especially since only a few locations are eligible for wind farms. "[It will be] first-come, first-served," he said.

Although wind energy is more expensive than energy produced from traditional sources, it is still profitable, thanks to EU subsidies, Chmal added.