Enel Green Power has received a loan of $170 million to help building a wind farm in Eastern Cape Province of South Africa.
KfW IPEX Bank from Germany has provided the loan for Enel to construct the 111 MW Gibson Bay wind farm that will comprise 37 turbines of 3 MW each.
The wind farm is expected to generate around 420 GWh a year.
The partial credit insurance coverage was provided by Euler Hermes, the German export credit agency.
The agreement gives Enel two separate lines of financing with maturities of seven and 17 years respectively.
Enel has also opened a training center to train South Africans to install and sell small solar-power projects such as on home rooftops.
The company already has trained at least 1,000 people by June.
The wind farm was one of the projects totaling 513 MW that Enel won the rights to in South Africa’s third round of renewable energy project bidding in October 2013.
Recently, Enel energy planned to invest almost €18bn in renewable energy and smart grid markets in coming five years.
Out of this, nearly €5.4bn will be invested in emerging markets, digital meters and smart grids, all over the world.
Enel is aiming to increase its renewable energy capacity by 50 percent to 7.1GW mostly in Latin America, North America and Africa.
The company also plans to launch new product and service offerings to drive its retail growth.
Enel Green Power (EGP) has commenced the construction of a new wind farm in Oklahoma of USA.
EGP plans to invest approximately 130 million US dollars to construct the Little Elk wind project.
The project located in Kiowa and Washita Counties of Oklahoma will have a total installed capacity of 74 MW.
Once the operation begins, the wind farm will be able to generate nearly 330 GWh enough to power around 27,000 U.S. homes annually.
The generated power will be equivalent to the emission of over 150,000 tons of CO2 into the atmosphere each year.
Enel is aiming to increase its renewable energy capacity by 50 percent to 7.1GW mostly in Latin America, North America and Africa.
Sabeena Wahid
editor@greentechlead.com