The majority owned subsidiary of the AES Corporation will build the 156 megawatt (MW) St Nikolas wind farm in Kavarna. Total project cost is €270m.

The facility will be AES Wind’s fifth operational wind farm in Europe, and will significantly increase Bulgaria’s wind generation capacity, says Marty Crotty, president, AES Wind Generation.

The wind farm will consist of 52 Vestas turbines and will be owned and operated by AES GEO Energy, which has signed a 12-year power purchase agreement with the National Electricity Company.

Some €198m was financed through non-recourse financing secured by a consortium of lenders, led by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), International Finance Corporation (IFC) and UniCredit Markets & Investment Banking for a 15 year term.

A signing ceremony in Sofia to close the deal was attended by Bulgarian prime minister Sergei Stanishev and Paul Hanrahan, president and chief executive of AES.

AES, which has more than 1,000 MW of wind capacity in operation globally, had funded €68m for the equity by September 2008 and covered the balance of the €4m project funding at the financial close.

In Bulgaria, AES is building the Maritza East I Power Project, the largest greenfield power sector investment to date in southeastern Europe.

AES is one of the world's largest global power companies, with 2007 revenues of $13.6bn with operations in 29 countries.