The new farm should be built in Marsa, Sibiu County, have a capacity of 3 MW and cost almost EUR5 million.
“Although I am a constructions engineer, renewable energy has grabbed my attention from the beginning. I find it extraordinary to be able to capture the Sun’s energy, convert it and use it, an inexhaustible resource that does not require using up resources so badly needed by future generations,” Mircea Bulboaca, chairman and owner of CON-A group told ZF Transilvania.
The solar PV project will be built on a 6.5 hectare plot of land that the businessman had owned for years and Bulboaca intends to pay for part of the investment with a bank loan.
“We are in talks with several banks and discussing offers to fund about half of the project,” Mircea Bulboaca said.
The Sibiu entrepreneur is thus branching out into the sector of choice for investments over the last few years, after having spent 23 years on the development of a EUR45 million construction business.
If the project is successful and the market trend allows it, Bulboaca will decide whether to expand or not, since he already has the necessary space for it.
The solar PV project already has most of the permits required to start construction work and it now has to find a builder and get licensed as an electricity supplier. If everything goes smoothly, the farm should become operational by mid year, the businessman says.
CON-A is one of the largest 100 businesses controlled by Romanian entrepreneurs and posted about 200 million lei (some EUR45 million) revenue last year, down 14% on 2011. Even though revenue went down, profit went up, CON-A officials say.
CON-A expects revenue to be flat in 2013.
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)