The contract includes supply, installation and commissioning of the wind turbines and a five-year service agreement. Delivery is scheduled to start in the first half of 2011 and the project will be completed by the end of the year.
The wind energy order has been placed by Volturino Wind and CO-VER Industrial. Volturino Wind is a project company of BKW Italia, controlled by BKW FMB Energy, a leading Swiss utility and among the main providers in production, transmission and distribution of electricity.
BKW FMB Energy has a generation capacity of more than 2,000 MW produced by a consolidated mix of hydroelectric, nuclear, wind energy and biogas power. The other company, CO-VER Industrial, stems from the merger of several companies of the CO-VER Group working in the leading industrial and service sectors.
“We are very pleased to announce this new project in Italy which shows the customer’s trust in our organisation, our full-fledged commitment to wind technology and our capability of granting the business case certainty,” says Juan Araluce, President of Vestas Mediterranean.
Rainer Karan, Managing Director of Vestas Italia continues: “We are proud to have been chosen as provider for this new project which also confirms the attractiveness of Apulia as an ideal setting for wind turbines due to its remarkable wind potential.”
With a total installed capacity of 23.4 MW and an estimated annual production of 78,000 MWh per year, the Volturino wind power plant will save the environment from more than 30,000 tons of CO2 emissions on an annual basis. Furthermore, it will generate enough electricity to power 32,500 Italian households per year.
Vestas in Italy
Vestas has been operating in the Italian market since 1998 through the company Vestas Italia which is the sales unit in Vestas Mediterranean handing all sales operations and maintenance activities in Italy. Vestas Italia is also responsible for the business development activities in the markets of Switzerland, the Balkans, Libya, Egypt and Jordan.
Vestas Italia’s headquarters and main sales office are located in Rome. The company also has an operations office in Taranto and a customer service centre in San Giorgio. In addition, Vestas has service and logistics facilities spread all over the country and on the main islands. Furthermore, Vestas currently also has two production facilities in Taranto for blades and nacelles for the V52 and the V90 turbines. For all the coverage, Vestas employs more than 700 people in Italy to meet the customers’ needs and be ahead of the industry.
Having delivered 2,236 MW in Italy by 31 December 2009, and with a well structured service and maintenance organisation, Vestas is the market leader and most experienced partner within the wind energy industry in Italy.
Vestas Mediterranean is one of the seven Sales Business Units in the Vestas Group and it manages all sales, construction and service operations in the countries of the Mediterranean area, Middle East, Latin America, Caribbean as well as approx 70 per cent of the African continent. As of 31 December 2009, this Sales Business Unit delivered a cumulative capacity of 8,569 MW, representing 22.4 per cent of Vestas’ global capacity.
From Vestas Mediterranean’s headquarters in Madrid, Vestas operates the Vestas Mediterranean Control Centre, consisting of a Performance and Diagnostic Service for preventive maintenance and a 24/7 Surveillance for reactive maintenance of almost 4,000 wind turbines in the Mediterranean area. In addition, we have established the Vestas Mediterranean Training Centre in la Muela, Zaragoza, Spain, where our technicians working on turbines throughout the entire Mediterranean region receive training on the latest technologies and working procedures on a regular basis.
In the Mediterranean region, Vestas has production facilities in Italy and Spain with a total workforce of 2,900 highly skilled and fully committed employees. Besides, we have established a new Vestas Spare Parts & Repair facility in Vilafranca del Penedès, close to Barcelona, Spain, for service and repair of wind turbine main components, which serve the entire European market.
