www.businessweek.com
June 14, 2010
(Bloomberg) -- Vestas Wind Systems A/S's unit in Greece expects growth in the Mediterranean country as the government moves to attract renewable energy projects by simplifying the investment process. "Greece has high wind resources and considerable growth opportunities", Yanos Michopoulos, vice president and general manager of Vestas Hellas Wind Technology SA, the Greek unit of the world's biggest maker of wind turbines, said in an e-mail interview on June 3. Prime Minister George Papandreou has said he wants to encourage "green growth" in Greece, focusing the nation on attracting investment to build renewable-energy projects.
The government pushed through a law aimed at reducing the approval time for renewable-energy investments to as little as eight months from three years. It also shortened the time it takes to get authorization from the Greek energy regulator to two months from as much as a year. The move was "positively received" by investors, "but time will tell" whether the changes take place in practice, Michopoulos said. Greece was third from the bottom in a European Wind Energy Association study released in April on the average amount of time it takes for approving wind-energy projects. A company has to go through more than 40 different authorities in the process, the study showed.
'Further Growth'
The company, with over 50% of the market share in Greece, has installed 600MWs and employees 130 workers, Michopoulos said. "Further growth is of course anticipated in the future", the manager said. Greece has about 1,000MWs of wind energy installations and will need to produce as much as 12,000MWs annually to meet European Union targets for energy from renewable targets for 2020, the Hellenic Wind Energy Association said in a document posted on its website.
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