BBW first announced its intent to purchase the Eifel wind farm – spread across four sites near Germany’s border with Belgium – on December 30, 2005.

BBW chief executive Peter O’Connell said purchasing the Eifel wind farm gave the company access to an established wind farm precinct, with an established 20-year “take and pay” agreement with the local utility.

The uptake agreement is protected by Germany’s renewable energy laws, which make it mandatory for utilities to connect wind assets to the network and purchase all of the electricity generated at a regulated tariff.

Under the wind energy regulations, wind projects completed by 2005 supply electricity to the grid at €0.0836 per kilowatt hour, while projects completed by 2006 are fixed at €0.0853/kWh.

The Eifel wind farm had 15 Nordex turbines with a capacity of 22.5MW installed by the end of 2005, with another three Nordex 1.5MW turbines starting operations earlier this year.

In December, BBW said that subject to due diligence and approvals, it might install another four 2MW Enercon turbines before the end of 2006, bringing the aggregate capacity of the Eifel wind farm to 35MW with an estimated long-term production of 69.7GWh annually.

Given the guaranteed uptake of all electricity produced by the Eifel wind farm and pre-existing land leases, maintenance and operational contracts, BBW said the acquisition is likely to be accretive to investor earnings.

According to BBW, the successful completion of the Eifel wind farm purchase brings its global installed capacity to 706.6MW, with a long-term mean energy production of 2250.7GWh per annum.