Spanish company "Wind Alliance Group" plans to build wind farm in vicinity of Pančevo

- Spanish company "Wind Alliance Group" plans to invest about 420m EUR in construction of a wind farm in Serbia within next three years - the Ambassador of Spain to Belgrade, Inigo de Palacio Espana, announced today (December 14, 2009).

After the Memorandum of Cooperation was signed between the Ministry of Energy of Serbia and Spanish International Development Agency, he said that construction of wind farm of 350 MW in the vicinity of Pančevo was in the pipeline.

Mr. Inigo de Palacio Espana said that people had been working on that project for one year and added that "Wind Alliance Group" had prepared all the plans for construction of the wind farm, which would be using wind energy for production of electricity.

On behalf of the Spanish International Development Agency, the Ambassador signed the Memorandum of Cooperation with the Minister of Energy of Serbia, Petar Škundrić, for development of projects for promotion and use of solar energy, in which 223,000 EUR will be invested.

Škundrić said that that money would be used for testing the potentials of use of solar energy in Serbia, development of technologies and pilot project for use of solar energy.

Škundrić said that solar energy represented 14% of all potentials of Serbia for use of renewable energy sources and added that Serbia would issue 2m tons of carbon-dioxide less every year if 2.5m households used solar energy for heating water.

The Ambassador of Spain estimated that the fight against global climate changes was made up of small steps such as the project for promotion of use of solar energy in Serbia.

Mr. Espana said that Spain ranked the first in the world in production of photovoltaic energy and the third in production of wind energy, and he added that Spanish entrepreneurs were interested in investments in those fields in Serbian market.

He said that greater use of renewable energy sources was part of the process of getting closer to European Union (EU).

Mr. Espana said that Spain would support every Serbia's decision concerning submission of candidacy for the EU membership, and he pointed out that Spain would do everything it can, once it took over the presidency of the Union on January 1st, 2010, to have that candidacy "treated as it deserves".