LUKERG Renew buys 70MW wind farm in Romania from Vestas

Newsroom 21/06/2013 | 11:48

Denmark’s Vestas, the wind turbine maker, has sold its Romanian wind project Gebeleisis, with an installed capacity of 70MW, along with a smaller wind farm of 14MW in Bulgaria to LUKERG Renew.

The Romanian farm has been operational since February 2013 and can generate up to 165GWh yearly. The farm is located in the Galati region and is valued at EUR 109.2 million. The Bulgarian project has an annual output of 34GWh and is valued at EUR 17.6 million.

LUKERG Renew is a joint venture between Russia’s oil major Lukoil and Italy’s energy company ERG. The company made its first acquisitions in 2012, when it purchased two wind projects with a combined capacity of 192MW.

Vestas decided to sell the two projects as the development and ownership of projects is not part of its regular business model.

The transaction is expected to be closed in the next two months and the Bulgarian deal needs to be approved by the national competition authority.

LUKERG’s acquisition comes amid the government’s decision to reschedule the issue of one green certificate for wind producer, which is set to be recovered from 2018. Until then, the wind sector will have to manage with one certificate.

Law firm Wolf Theiss advised Vestas on the sale. The team of lawyers that worked on the deal included Bryan Jardine (coordinating partner Wolf Theiss Bucharest), Ciprian Glodeanu (partner Wolf Theiss), Ileana Glodeanu (counsel) and Radu Plesca (associate lawyer).