German firm boosts Turkey investments

As Germany’s EnBW increases domestic and global operations, Turkey gets its share from the expansion strategy. Germany’s third largest energy company, which wants to generate around 20 percent of its electricity from renewable sources within 10 years, expands its first wind farm project in Turkey, and builds another power station

Building on current investments, Germany’s third largest energy company, EnBW Energie Baden-Württemberg AG, has plans to construct a new power station to produce renewable energy in Turkey.

EnBW plans to build a power station in Turkey by the end of the year following a wind power project in Turkey. The electrical power stations are the first projects of a joint venture founded around one year ago with the Turkish industrial company, Borusan Holding.

The firm is expanding its first wind farm in Turkey, according to an April 29 release on the EnBW website. With a total output of 45 MW, the onshore wind farm would be connected to the grid in the coming weeks with an additional 15 MW. EnBW is building a second run-of-the-river, hydroelectric power station in Turkey with a planned output of 50 MW. The total investments come to around 77 million euros.

Strengthening position

In the last few months EnBW has increased the ability to generate electricity in Germany by around 2,000 MW. "We will further strengthen our power station park in future. Our new construction project RDK 8 is progressing well and is expected to start generating power by New Year 2012. This year, we will generate the first electricity at our newly constructed hydroelectric power station in Rheinfelden and in our EnBW Windpark Baltic 1, in the German Baltic Sea," said Hans-Peter Villis, chairman of EnBW.

In no less than 10 years, EnBW wants to generate 20 percent of its electricity, or more than 14 billion kilowatt-hours, from renewable sources. "In 10 years, we calculate we will be able to supply around 5 million households with electricity from renewable energies. This roughly corresponds to the number of households in all of Baden-Württemberg," said Villis.

EnBW is setting the course for long-term and sustainable growth, relying on a broad energy mix, which includes atomic energy, conventional energy generation and renewable energy sources, according to the statement. The company plans to invest a total of 7.9 billion euros in energy between 2010 and 2012. In 2009, EnBW invested around 4.4 billion euros, the largest yearly amount in company's history, the statement read.

According to the group’s results for 2009, EnBW was able to keep constant its earnings before revenue taxes and interest compared to the previous year at 1.8 billion euros. The operating cash flow rose compared to the previous year by 60.3 percent to 2.4 billion euros. In view of the increased operating cash flow, the free cash flow in 2009 also surpassed the previous year's level by 888 million euros and reached 1.3 billion euros.

"In view of the fact that the economic crisis has impacted the overall result by around 250 million euros, EnBW overall successfully survived the economic crisis in 2009 and has been able to achieve a satisfactory overall results," said Villis. "In the past, we have concentrated strategically on our core business. This was an important requirement for being able to react decisively and successfully to the economically-related fall in demand."

EnBW, which focuses on the segments of electricity and gas as well as energy and environmental services, also operates in the markets of Central and Eastern Europe.

Reference:

http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/n.php?n=german-firm-boosts-turkey-investments-2010-05-03