He plans to invest another EUR14 million in the sector and his projects completed or pending completion total of 32 MW installed in wind farms and solar parks. The businessman is one of the most important clean energy investors not backed by an international company.
Mailat spent 35 years working in the beer industry and was one of the owners of Bere Mures, which made the Neumarkt beer. In 2008, Heineken paid EUR150 million to buy the Romanian brewery, the second largest independent producer in the country.
Mailat got EUR37 million for his 25% in Bere Mures. Shortly after exiting the business, he invested about EUR15 million in Nova Vita, a private medical center in Targu Mures (central Romania).
He first entered the renewable energy business along with his former Bere Mures partner Emil Morariu, in 2011. The two invested EUR20 million in a 10 MW wind farm in Buzau County. A few months later a second farm in the same county became operational.
All the investments made after that were done via companies held by the members of the Morariu and Mailat families.
When the two decided to get into the clean energy business, Romania had only 500 MW installed in wind farms but 2011 was the first year when the renewable energy support scheme was applied.
Virgil Mailat expanded into solar power this year with a EUR3.5 million investment in a 3 MW solar PV farm in Sibiu County. He is also developing three more 3 MW photovoltaic farms, which should require about EUR14 million investments, according to ZF’s calculations based on an average cost per megawatt installed of EUR1.55 million.
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)