Spanish wind firm to receive €185m from EU bank

Spanish energy giant Acciona is to receive a €185m loan from the European Investment Bank (EIB) to help accelerate its development of environmental technologies.

The loan will be use to research new renewable energy technologies, environmentally sustainable construction techniques, and water treatment and desalination systems, the company said.

EIB Vice-President Carlos da Silva Costa said the company's track record of investing in low carbon technologies had helped it to secure the new funding. " Acciona has gone down the road of innovation to maintain its competitiveness and position itself in the market as a provider of high value-added solutions with a strong RDI content," he said.

The company said that the bulk of the new research activities will be carried out at its research and development facilities in Madrid, Barcelona and Pamplona.

The move is a further boost to Acciona, which last week received provisional approval from the Spanish government for plans to build 824MW of new wind farms, 250MW of concentrated solar power plants and 30MW of biomass capacity.

The firm is the world's second largest wind-farm operator and is also constructing a 132MW wind farm in the US.

Attending the Copenhagen Summit last week, Acciona chairman Jose Manuel Entrecanales told news agency Bloomberg that the firm is considering bonds in the public market for the first time in a move that is likely to raise further funds for its renewable energy expansion drive.

In related news, the EIB earlier this month also announced that it is to lend €250m to Poland to help modernise its electricity distribution network and €122m to the National Fund for Environmental Protection and Water Management to finance water supply and wastewater collection infrastructure projects.