Wind farm operator signs €509m Canadian joint venture

EDDIE O’Connor’s latest wind farm operator Mainstream Renewable Power has signed a e509 million deal to co-develop 400 megawatts of power in Canada over the next four years.

The joint venture is with local wind farm developer, the Alberta Wind Energy Corporation and construction of the turbines should begin later this year.

The two companies are aiming to be generating around 46mw by next year, with a further 62mw coming on stream by 2012.

“Our strategy is to think globally and deliver locally and, I believe, this is key to our success.

“We identify local partners with great projects and they leverage from our global strength in areas such as project finance, construction and procurement so that together we can deliver projects faster and more cost-effectively,” commented Mr O’Connor.

Alberta Wind Energy chief executive, Stewart Duncan said that the time for investing in the Canadian market is now as the country’s fossil fuel-generating stations are coming to the end of their natural lives, while the demand for electricity is still growing.

“Alberta has some of the best wind sites for power generation anywhere in onshore North America,” he added.

Mainstream will control 80% of the joint venture.

This latest deal is the second significant announcement by Mainstream in as many weeks.

Earlier this month, it announced that it had won the rights to develop 360mw of wind-generated power off the coast of Scotland.

Last November, Mainstream signed a e780,000 joint venture in Chile with local firm, Andes Energy, aimed at developing a pipeline of 400mw of wind power in the South American nation.

At Mainstream’s official launch last summer, Mr O’Connor said that the company’s ambitions were truly international — with mainland Europe, the US, South America and Australia identified as potential areas of interest.

A spokesperson for the company re-iterated yesterday that such a scale still interests the renewable energy firm. It is understood that Mainstream has a pipeline of significant deals nearing announcement.