During the erection, WKN will take over the complete owners engineering for Allianz. Furthermore, a long-term operations and maintenance contract has been signed for the technical operations management.
At the beginning of 2006, preparations for the erection of the turbines will start. First turbines are going to be installed mid of summer 2006; commissioning of the whole windfarm is scheduled for April 2007 then.
The yearly generated energy output of the 72-megawatt-windfarm will cover the usage of a total of 46,000 Italian households.
Since four years, WKN Windkraft Nord AG has developed windfarms in Italy via Aerosol S.r.l. WKN holds 60 percent of the Aerosol shares. Now, Francofonte is the first project to be erected. The projecting and plannings of the windfarm started in 2001. "With a vision and an even bigger portion of idealism," WKN-CEO Martinus Scherweit reports. At that point of time, a partner was searched for and found; a joint-venture was founded.
Since summer 2001 Aerosol has been responsible for the acquisition of suitable wind sites as well as for the support of the approval proceedings.
This transaction represents the first investment under Allianz's strategy of investing in long-term renewable energy projects. Wind energy in particular is considered to be a strong growth sector and one of the main opportunities presented by the need to tackle climate change.
For WKN, the now sold windfarm is the entry to the realization of further Italian projects. "We have already received a couple of important approvals for our next project", Martinus Scherweit states. In addition to that, further projects are included in the WKN / Aerosol pipeline.
WKN Windkraft Nord AG
WKN AG has been planning, financing, building and operating wind farms in Germany since as early as 1991. Furthermore, WKN AG is represented also in Europe and the USA with international subsidiaries and joint-ventures. Being a member of the BGZ-Group, WKN belongs to the innovative company networking "House of Future Energies" in Husum / Germany which has established as an important competence centre for renewable energies. To date, wind farms with a total output of more than 450 megawatts and an investment volume of 550 million Euro have been created only in Germany.