Two global renewable energy majors — the American renewable energy producer, SunEdison, and the Spanish wind turbine manufacturer, Gamesa — today announced that they have formed an equal joint venture that will develop 1,000 MW of wind energy plants globally by 2018.
Gamesa will supply the wind turbines and be responsible for operation and maintenance of the machines. Gamesa “may also” provide engineering, procurement and construction services for the project, says a press release from SunEdison.
While ownership of the projects will be shared during development, SunEdison will acquire them after construction is over, from the joint venture.
Both SunEdison and Gamesa are active players in the Indian market. Gamesa is the largest wind turbine seller in India. SunEdison is the largest foreign investor in the Indian solar energy space. The company last week announced the commissioning of a 50 MW solar plant in Madhya Pradesh — the country’s biggest plant equipped with trackers. (Sterling & Wilson of the Shapoorji Pollonji group built 30 MW, while L&T built the rest for SunEdison.)
SunEdison said in February that it wanted to build 20,000 MW of wind and solar plants by 2022. The company intends to set up an integrated solar silicon-to-module manufacturing plant in collaboration with the Adani group.
More recently, SunEdison entered the Indian wind market with its acquisition of 412 MW of wind assets. While the consideration for the deal was not disclosed, reports based on analysts’ estimates put it at close to Rs 4,000 crore.