Nearly 80 MW going on line

Gamesa Eolica is well on the way to becoming the biggest wind turbine manufacturer in Spain. The company hopes to have 79 MW in the ground by the end of the year and to add another 180 MW by December 1997. Gamesa Eolica is part owned by Denmark's largest wind company, Vestas Wind Systems. It mainly builds the Vestas 600 kW model, although its manufacturing facilities at Navarra could soon be re-planned to also produce the Vestas 1.5 kW turbine, which Gamesa Eolica currently imports from Denmark for clients in Spain. According to company director Juan Ramon Jimenez, by the time the year comes to a close Gamesa Eolica will have connected to the grid some 130 turbines and hopefully have connected another 300 by end-1997. "We are just about to complete farms in Borja in Aragon and Guerinda in Navarra," says Jimenez who confirms that about 20 MW went on line in August in Leiza, Navarra, followed by another 15 MW in La Muela, Aragon and 8 MW in Monte del Perdon, also in Navarra. In 1997, the company has plans for 20 turbines in Catalunya's Tarragona province, 40 in Castilla Leon, 70 in Galicia, 30 in the Basque Country and 50 more in Aragon. Its most critical project, however, is its ongoing development of wind power generation in Navarra, which has plans to generate 50% of its electrical needs through the use of wind power by the year 2010. The wind power plan -- 600 MW in 21 wind farms -- is part of the government's target to make Navarra 95% dependent on renewable energy for its electricity.