Macedonia Takes Pioneer Step in Wind Energy

Photo by: Harvey McDaniel

Macedonia's state-owned ELEM power company has signed a 41 million euro deal with the Danish and Greek branches of Siemens to construction the country's first wind farm.

Sixteen windmills will be built with a capacity of 2 to 3 megawatts on the wind farm, which will cover 29 hectares. The total production power of the park will be 100 gigawatts with a capacity of 37 megawatts.

The farm will be located in the southeastern town of Bogdanci and will be built with financial support from the German development bank KfW.

The total cost of the project is estimated at 55.5 million euro. KfW will provide 33 million while the rest of the money will come from ELEM.

ELEM has plans for the further enlargement of the wind park.

In the recent years there have been several announcements by foreign and domestic investors about building wind farms.

But nothing has been built so far, leading some parties to blame slow and complicated red tape.

Macedonia currently meets the bulk of its electricity needs from coal power plants with some power coming from water power plants.