Developing wind farms

, the renewable energy development division of

, has entered into joint venture partnerships to further its plans for wind farm development in Portugal.

The first agreement, with Portuguese property developers Riviera, is to develop a number of wind farms totalling approximately 250MW, with Airtricity holding a 60 per cent share. The estimated date for construction of the first wind farm is around the end of 2009.

Airtricity has also signed an agreemnt with Hispano Lusa to establish a joint venture company called Airtricity Marao. The company will be 90 per cent owned by Airtricity and 10 per cent owned by Hispano Lusa and will be responsible for development of eight wind farm sites with a potential capacity of 150MW.

Airtricity chief executive Paul Dowling said: ‘Airtricity's development pipeline in Portugal is now over 1,000MW. We are fully committed to the construction of this wind farm pipeline and to making a substantial contribution to Portugal achieving its target of 45 per cent of energy consumption from renewable sources by 2010.'

In April 2008, Airtricity also entered into a joint venture with Gothenburg-based Gothia Vind with the aim of developing around 200MW of wind farm capacity in western Sweden.