EIB, African Development Bank to provide EUR 45m for Cape Verde wind farms

(ADPnews) - Dec 17, 2010 - The European Investment Bank (EIB) and African Development Bank on Wednesday closed an agreement to provide EUR 45 million (USD 59m) for the development of 28 MW of onshore wind farms on four islands in the Cape Verde archipelago.

The EIB will provide EUR 30 million and the African Development Bank EUR 15 million for the EUR 65 million project, which forms part of European Union’s 2008 – 2013 Cape Verde country strategy, the EIB said.

The project, which will introduce wind power technology provided by Danish major Vestas Wind Systems A/S (CPH:VWS), is being developed by InfraCo in a public-private partnership between the government of Cape Verde and local power utility Electra.

All wind farms are expected to be operational by the end of 2011.

The new facilities will help the island reach its ambitious target of 25% of local power needs to be covered by renewable energy by 2012 and 50% by 2020. Wind energy was first introduced to Cape Verde in 1994, but until now only provides 2% of power needs in the small island state located 500 km (310.7 miles) of the West African coast.

(EUR 1.0 = USD 1.321)

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