Public Power Corporation (PPC), Greece’s largest electricity utility, said yesterday it will pay up to 43.4 million euros ($55.5 million) to buy six wind farms from BCI Group. PPC’s board cleared the acquisition of the wind parks last week as part of efforts to become less dependent on lignite. State-controlled PPC aims to invest about 2 billion euros in renewables by 2015 to replace a total of 2,000 megawatts of old, polluting lignite plants as it shifts toward cleaner energy sources.
The three wind farms have a total capacity of 24.65 MW and will be bought by PPC’s fully owned subsidiary PPC Renewables. The deal also includes the purchase of another three wind farms under development, with a total capacity of 48 MW. PPC said the construction budget for the three farms being built was estimated at 68 million euros, of which 51 million will be loans. The utility’s earnings fell 27 percent in the first half, hurt by high fuel costs, taxes and lower power consumption.