Russia launches US1.7 billion wind investment fund

Russian Association of the Wind Power Industry (RAWI) and Russian Investment Agency Invest in Russia (RIA) has signed an agreement on the creation of the Wind Energy Fund with a target amount of funds of RUB100 billion (US$ 1.7 billion).

The main goal is to invest in the creation of wind power. The term of the fund is set at 15 years with the possibility of prolongation, the investment period is not more than 7 years, the target rate of return on projects is at the level of 15%. The main feature of creating an investment fund is the use of the mechanism of state guarantees of return of funds.

According to the Russian Investment Agency, onshore wind farms are currently the most competitive sources of electricity due to a reduction in specific capital costs. The consecutive improvement of wind turbine designs together with the increase in unit capacity of aggregates allowed to reduce the specific capital costs for wind turbines and, consequently, the cost of electricity produced. According to the expert community, each doubling of the unit capacity of wind power plants ensured a reduction in the unit cost of their construction by an average of 7%.

According to RAWI, the development of wind power in Russia affects the changes in business models within the market. For instance, today already, as it was at the peak of the market in Europe, the investor is not ready to pay a high price for site search and project preparation and is often able to do this work independently.

At the same time, the potential and quality of prepared such projects in Russia is high and an investment decision is needed to implement such projects. This will ensure a high dynamics of the market development and expansion of the field for the creation and development of the industry of wind turbine production in Russia.

The signing of the agreement took place in the working environment, which was preceded by consultations of the partners of the agreement.