First wind plant in Asturias awaits orders from distributor

The first wind plant in Spain's northern region of Asturias now stands fully equipped and waiting starting orders from local distributor Viesgo. The ESP 3.4 billion (EUR 20 million) Pico Gallo plant comprises 37, 660 kW machines from MADE, the wind turbine manufacturing wing of Spain's largest utility, Endesa. The developer of the 24.42 MW plant is Northeolic Pico Gallo, whose largest shareholder is American utility Cinergy Global Power. Cinergy took a 25% stake in 1999, topping up its participation to 50% earlier this year. The other half is owned by Northeolic SA and Endesa Cogeneración y Renovables (ECYR), each with 25%. The project was originally instigated by Northeolic -- a group of private investors -- which is developing a further five wind plant in the region totalling 235 MW. While MADE has supplied the technology for Pico Gallo via a turnkey contract, Cinergy's María García explains that regional engineering consultants Procinsa provided project management services with Britain's Garrad Hassan acting as overall project consultant. Pico Gallo marks the first commercial application of MADE's Geswind patent, which the company says is Spain's first Internet-linked management and control system. García says that Geswind was a key factor in Cinergy's decision to join the project. Meanwhile in Asturias, a further six plant are going up, all using Gamesa Eólica turbines. Developer Sinae is behind three plant, totalling 64.6 MW, while Terranova is building the other two, totalling 49.2 MW. Sixty-six wind project applications are being processed by the regional government, which has clamped a moratorium on new applications in order to clear the bottleneck.