Kalmykia presents project of first country's wind power farm

Today, Elista, the capital of Kalmykia, has hosted a meeting with participation of experts from ministries and agencies and bosses of Russian and foreign financial circles. The meeting discussed the issues related to implementation of the investment project of building wind power units (WPUs) in the village of Peschany, Priyutnenskiy District.

"The Czech Company named 'Falcon Capital' has already invested about 200 million euros into the project," Alexei Orlov, head of Kalmykia, said on February 12 at his meeting with Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. "Till the end of the year it is planned to install 11 more WPUs in addition to the two existing ones."

At the today's meeting, Dmitry Kirmelashvili, representative of the "Falcon Capital" in Russia, has assured the audience that at the beginning of the next year, Elista will start receiving electric power from the WPU farm.

"It was very difficult to persuade Western banks to invest into this project. In order to provide them with the necessary guarantees, we created a closed-loop-cycle - from power generation to sale of electricity; for this purpose we've set up three subsidiary companies", - said Dmitry Kirmelashvili.

According to Mr Kirmelashvili, WPUs will generate twice the amount of electricity that is demanded by the republic and, hence, the surplus can be sold in the wholesale market.

According to economists' calculations, the increase of electricity tariffs with launching the WPUs will be insignificant, and by 2014, "when the planned capacity is reached, tariffs for wind electricity will stop growing whatsoever."

The WPU farm in Peschany means also new jobs. The subsidiaries of the "Falcon Capital" are already employing about 250 persons; by completion of the construction, there will be about one thousand of them - practically all the working-age population of the Priyutnenskiy District.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that the launch of the WPU farm was several times postponed.