Belgian-Dutch company WindVision and the municipality of Alibunar have signed an agreement on the right of easement for the use and installation of electricity transmission cables for the purpose of the construction of a new wind farm Banat 1.
The President of Alibunar municipality Dusan Dakic explained that this is an umbrella agreement from which all other agreements on the construction of the wind farm, expected to start next year, will follow. The installation of transmission cables to the location where the turbines will be installed is one of the requirements for this large project to start.Last September, Belgian company Elicio NV has successfully completed the project for the construction of Alibunar wind farm. The wind farm has installed capacity of 42 MW and will generate enough electricity to cover the demand of some 38,000 households. Elicio NV invested some 80 million euros in the project. Beside the 21 wind turbines the wind farm complex also includes completed transformer station and distribution station. Commercial operation is expected to start in early October. The project is beneficial in several ways for Serbia considering it will contribute greatly to Serbia meeting the defined national targets of 27% of renewable energy resources until 2020 and will reduce the CO2 emission by 88,000 tons per year.
The International Financial Corporation (IFC), a member of the World Bank Group, provided a loan worth 19.1 million euros to Elicio NV for the project for the construction of Alibunar wind farm. The agreement involves two loans of 15.5 million euros and 3.8 million euros, plus a syndicated loan. Unicredit Bank, the Netherlands Development Finance Company (FMO) and Green for Growth Fund (GGF) have agreed to provide a further 40 million euro in loans to the project, which will help boost Serbia’s renewable energy production and improve the energy mix and electricity supply. In 2017, the company commissioned wind farm Malibunar, which has four wind turbines with combined installed capacity of 8 MW. The plant’s annual electricity production is about 25 GWh, while the cost of the project was 13.8 million euros.
