The new AES wind park in Kavarna is expected to be put in exploitation by the beginning of October 2009. The park is constructed by the American AES in partnership with the Bulgarian and German firm Geo Energy. According to a statement from the Ministry of Agriculture, the facility is poised to be linked to the national grid system by the first week of October, Investor.bg has reported.

The total investment for the new wind park facility is estimated at 270 million euro. Experts believe that the average annual energy production will be 340 gigawatt hours.

As of now, all 52 turbines have been installed, each one of them with three megawatt capacity. Furthermore, all necessary underground cables have been installed, with a total length of 62km. Currently, the auxiliary station is being built as well as the suspended electrical supply system with a 110 kV capacity, 5.5km in length.

"Bulgaria is a good place to invest because legislation is supportive of renewable energy," AES Wind Bulgaria managing director Teodor Bobochikov told a round table on renewable energy, organised by law firm Wolf Theiss in Sofia on June 30. "Clearly, the feed-in tariff is a good one, since there are so many wind operators."

Bulgaria is aiming to develop a potent wind park infrastructure as the country is trying to  comply with the designated EU strategy target that 20 per cent of all energy should come from renewable sources by 2020.

Bulgaria currently has 158MW and is set to double that capacity when AES Corp. begins commercial operation on its 156MW wind park in Bulgarevo, near Kavarna in northeastern Bulgaria, in autumn 2009. Only Poland, with 472MW, has a larger wind energy capacity among the EU’s eastern member states, although eastern European countries are still lagging considerably behind their western counterparts.