(Wiesbaden, July 1st, 2016) After ten years of business activities in Argentina, ABO Wind has for the first time sold two ready-to-build wind farms with a capacity of 50 megawatts each. The revenues amount to a low single-digit million Euro sum and cover a large part of past expenditures caused by the previous involvement in Latin America. "Our perseverance is now paying off," said Vanesa Revelli, CEO of ABO Wind Energías Renovables S.A., a subsidiary of German-based ABO Wind AG. "The conditions in Argentina have improved significantly. We see a good chance to sell more projects in the coming months, and to secure service contracts."
Up until recently, the Argentine subsidiary was the problem child of the ABO Wind group. But the country's enormous energy demand and the excellent wind conditions had always given cause for high hopes. Production costs for wind energy are significantly lower than the prices of the ever-growing energy imports in Argentina. But in the past, policy makers had failed to create regulatory conditions to exploit the wind energy potential. Now change is becoming tangible.
The government of President Mauricio Macri, in office since the end of 2015, is aiming to issue a tender of 600 megawatts of wind energy this year. "We will benefit from this development, since ABO Wind has developed projects that are ready for construction in several provinces, and the number of competitors is manageable," said Vanesa Revelli.
Both of the sold projects now belong to national energy suppliers. ABO Wind will assist the buyers in installing and connecting the wind farms to the grid next year, and will for example advise the customers on selecting the turbines und designing the wind farm layout. "We are currently negotiating with further potential investors. We are confident that several of our developed projects will participate in the forthcoming tender and can be built next year," said Vanesa Revelli. That way, the Argentine subsidiary with its headquarters in Buenos Aires will for the first time contribute to the consolidated profit of the ABO Wind group in fiscal 2016.
