Wind opportunities in Eastern Europe

SLUPSK, Poland, June 20 (UPI) -- Eastern Europe is poised to become a major player in the international wind industry.

A major wind project in Poland is just one example of development occurring in Eastern European countries, the International Herald Tribune reported.

The European Commission is looking specifically at Poland, which it says has land wind conditions similar to Germany and coastal conditions similar to Denmark. One proposed project in Slupsk is a $234 million, 120 megawatt wind farm by Good Energies.

Opportunities still exist in Western Europe, said Andrew Lee, managing director of Good Energies, "but they tend to be smaller and a lot of the best sites have been taken."

According to Emerging Energy Research, Eastern European wind power capacity will increase by 13 times to 7,552 megawatts by 2015. Projects in Poland, Turkey, the Czech Republic and Hungary are expected to be the main contributors.

"A year ago I would have told you that outside of the old European Union, there's not much worth looking at in terms of development," said Michael Rand, a principal banker in the European Bank's power and energy utilities unit. "In the last 12 months, the market has really taken off."

Most of the wind energy in Europe comes from Western European countries, especially Spain, Germany and Denmark, but those countries are starting to exhaust their land resources, said EER analyst Catalina Robledo. The next places to be developed will be Eastern Europe and offshore.