The Czech power giant CEZ is to build two wind- powered electricity generating farms in Romania with a combined capacity of 600 megawatts, the company said on Wednesday.
The state-controlled energy firm said that it bought assets a day earlier to build the Fantanele and Cogealac farms from the wind power developer Continental Wind Partners LLC.
CEZ did not disclose the purchase price but said it plans to invest a total of 1.1 billion euros (1.6 billion dollars) in the farms, the planned capacity of which is nearly triple the size of the Europe's largest operational wind farm of Maranchon in Guadalajara, Spain.
Construction, on a site north of the Romanian city of Constanta near the Black Sea is planned to begin next month and end in two stages in 2009 and 2010.
Once operational, the projects will represent nearly 30 per cent of the renewable energy market in Romania, which currently acquires 7 megawatts from wind, the company said.
CEZ, which has stakes in energy firms across the former Eastern Bloc, would also like to expand generation from gas and nuclear to meet EU's requirements to curb climate change, the company said.
The German car market is facing its worse downturn, the nation's auto industry association warned Wednesday as the deepening sense of economic gloom in the country leads to a shakeout in the industry and the prospects of big job cuts.
A comedy starring Vince Vaughn and Reese Witherspoon as a couple trying to avoid their families at Christmas debuted in first place over the weekend at North American box offices, according to preliminary studio estimates issued Sunday.