The 58 megawatts wind farm consists of 29 wind turbines with each two megawatts capacity and 90 m rotor on 95 m hub height. The investor of the project is M & A Rinnovabili s.r.l. partially owned by the South-Italian Moncada Energy Group. The investor will now be responsible for the completion of Rocca Rossa. According to WKN estimation, erection and commissioning of the wind farm could be realized until end of 2009.
The 29 turbines will be connected to the existing 150 KV grid by a new substation to be built. The external cabling with seven kilometres length will follow a provincial road. When the WKN project engineers firstly identified the site some years ago, they named it Rocca Rossa because of the ferrous red stone dominating the landscape.
After the sales and turn-key erection of wind farm Francofonte in 2007, WKN Windkraft Nord AG expands its already existing strong position at the South-Italian market with the greenfield development of Rocca Rossa. During the development of the project the approval procedure proved to be quite demanding compared to Francofonte as Rocca Rossa was approved within a period of major regulative changes. While Francofonte had been approved with 30 single approvals, Rocca Rossa applied to a so-called Autorizzazione Unica. Only one authority certificates the complete approval consulting all other authorities involved within a Conferenzia di Servizi (public discussion procedure). Basically intended as simplification and following to a national legal act, the implementtation of this new proceeding took some time which was mainly reasoned by the prevalent uncertainty of competency of the various authorities involved. Finally, the Autorizzazione Unica was issued end of 2007.
The head of Moncada Energy Group, Salvatore Moncada, has already developed several wind energy projects on Sicily on his own. Moncada Energy Group is operating various wind farms, actually erects production facilities for photovoltaic modules und follows international activities, too.
WKN Italia Managing Director and Project Manager Frank Kraatz especially remembers the non-technical aspects of the development. „When we met the three involved communities of Cammarata, Vallelunga Pratameno and Castronuovo in order to get to know each other, traditional Sicily food has been served on long tables. There we got typical local specialities like Trippa (rumen). Definitely a matter of taste.“
About WKN Windkraft Nord AG
WKN Windkraft Nord AG has planned, installed and operated turnkey wind parks in Germany since 1990. In addition, WKN AG is also expanding abroad and is internationally represented by subsidiaries in numerous European countries and the USA. Up to now, the company constructed a total of 700 megawatts capacity wind energy. WKN AG is part of the innovative “House of Future Energies” corporate network in Husum, an established center of excellence for renewable energy sources in Germany. The company is a wholly owned subsidiary of BGZ Beteiligungsgesellschaft Zukunftsenergien AG, or BGZ AG for short.
For further information please contact Catrin Petersen,
Communication & Marketing Manager of the BGZ Group, on +49 48 41 – 89 44 100.
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WKN Windkraft Nord AG
House of Future Energies
Otto-Hahn-Straße 12 – 16, 25813 Husum, Germany
Tel.: +49 48 41 – 89 44 100, Fax +49 48 41 – 89 44 225
www.wkn-ag.de