At least 10 more wind farms are expected to be developed in Latvia in the next few years. Currently, there are two. This will create more and more competition, promising to lower electricity prices for residents, Latgale Television reports December 9.
One of these potential parks, covering an area of 3,000 hectares, could be built in five years in the municipality of Nīcgale in the Augšdaugava region and will be developed by a Norwegian company.
In Augšdaugava municipality, the 26-turbine wind park, which is being developed at an initial cost of €200 million, is expected to produce 727 gigawatt-hours, around 10% of Latvia’s total annual energy consumption.
Dmitrijs Guzs, Business Development Manager at the company Vindr, said: “Wind availability grows. Average wind speeds are relatively high. To build such a large project, you need to build and improve the infrastructure.”
Although the park is not due to be built for several years, the benefits to the municipality and the residents that the local authorities want are already emerging.
Pēteris Dzalbe, Executive Director of the Augšdaugava Municipality Council, said: “For every megawatt of energy installed, the local community together with the municipality will receive €2,500 for development and compensation.”
In a few years, eight national wind parks will be developed by the company “Latvijas Vēja parki” in different regions with a total capacity of 800 megawatts from 120 wind turbines.
“These 800 megawatts would actually – in terms of capacity and development – be more than two terawatt hours. In fact, it could cover the shortfall in the electricity balance,” noted Jānis Urtāns, Chairman of the Board of “Latvijas Vēja parki” Ltd.
As experts pointed out, the more electricity producers there are, the lower the forecast price will be. No one can say at the moment what it will be.
Urtāns said, “Latvijas Vēja parki is planning to build larger and more modern wind turbines, with an approximate capacity of 6.2 to 6.5 megawatts per wind turbine.”
Currently, there are two wind parks in Kurzeme, but their capacity is much lower than future projects. However, developers are hoping for changes to the Electricity Market Law in the future, which would give more certainty to the projects.
Guzs said: “We see that the construction of wind farms as such brings development to the region and also development to the country in the sense that increasing energy production reduces the price of electricity and attracts other industries.”
Compared to neighboring countries, Latvia is lagging behind – Lithuania has installed wind turbines with a total capacity of 1.2 gigawatts by the beginning of this year, Estonia – 376 megawatts, and Latvia – 136 megawatts.
