MW Team Invest, Ovidiu Development and Tomis Team, the three companies controlled by CEZ, which operate the Fantanele-Cogealac wind farm, the largest such investment in Romania and Europe, posted about RON375 million revenue last year, 2.5 times lower than in 2013, according to the data supplied. Their cumulated loss stood at RON998.5 million compared with a RON186 million profit in 2013.
The figures supplied by CEZ Romania are very different from those in the annual report of the utilities group, where the wind farm loss was valued at CZK1 billion (about EUR37 million). The company officials did not comment on the financial statements by press time.
The Fantanele-Cogealac wind farm in two towns in Dobruja, SE Romania, was the biggest bet of the Czech utility group in this country, besides the 2005 takeover of the former Electrica Oltenia. CEZ invested more than EUR1 billion in the wind farm project.
The largest on-shore wind farm in Europe, Fantanele-Cogealac has a capacity of 600 MW, almost as much as a reactor of Cernavoda nuclear power plant and consists of 240 General Electric turbines. CEZ’s decision to go ahead with the investment was based on a generous clean energy support scheme Romania’s government put in place, but the group is now experiencing problems due to the many changes of the green power support legislation.
The data on the national grid company Transelectrica website shows a significant deterioration of the situation of wind farm projects in 2014 compared with 2013.
According to Transelectrica data, CEZ’s wind farm only got 452,600 certificates compared with 1.7 million in 2013.
Besides the problems the modification of the support scheme caused, which deferred some of the green certificates due to for the electricity generated by the wind farms, hydropower plants and solar parks until 2017-2020, CEZ is also facing problems due to the size of its wind farm.
The legislation in force requires farms with a capacity greater than 125 MW to be individually notified to the European Commission for an assessment of a potential overcompensation created by the enforcement of the support scheme. The Fantanele-Cogealac farm, completed at the end of 2012 consists of Fantanele Vest (262.5 MW), Cogealac (252.2 MW) and Fantanele Est (85 MW). Since the former two are above the 125 MW threshold, only the latter gets green certificates, CEZ Romania management said at the beginning of the year.
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)