Irish firm pairs up with global giant GE to build wind farms in Vietnam
The deal between GE and Dublin-based Mainstream Renewables could be worth up to $1.5bn.
IRISH RENEWABLE ENERGY developer Mainstream has made an agreement with international conglomerate General Electric (GE) that could see up to $1.5 billion of wind farms in Vietnam.
The Dublin-based renewable energy firm announced this morning that it has signed the term sheet to develop, build and operate large-scale wind power plants with GE Energy Financial Services, a subsidiary of GE.
The deal comes after GE and the Vietnamese Ministry of Industry and Trade signed in May to build several wind farms with a combined capacity of up to one gigawatt.
Mainstream will act as the developer for the project while GE will provide its technology for the venture. Both firms will assist with raising finance for the project.
One gigawatt of wind energy is generally estimated to cost about $1.5 billion (€1.3 billion) to develop. For context, Ireland has about three gigawatts of wind energy installed across the entire country.
Construction
A spokesman for Mainstream, which was founded in 2008 by former Airtricity boss Eddie O’Connor, told Fora that the company hopes to start building the wind plants as soon as possible.
“We are on track in Africa and in Chile, so we previously said that Asia is the next place we want to go,” he said.
“We have people on the ground in Vietnam already (and) from 2018 we would expect to start building there.”
Mainstream CEO Eddie O'Connor
Mainstream Renewable chief operating officer Andy Kinsella said that the company “looks forward to expanding our operations in Asia and working with GE to bring much-needed power to Vietnam”.
The projects are expected to be made up of both greenfield and partially developed sites and are intended to include co-operation with local and international developers.
Emerging markets
Mainstream founder O’Connor also set Irish energy company Airtricity, which was sold to Scottish and Southern Energy, now SSE, for over €1 billion.
The company, which is based in Dublin, employs over 160 people and has offices across five continents.
It has also been active in developing markets such as Africa and South America. Last month the company announced it was awarded contracts by the National Energy Commission of Chile to build and operate seven utility-scale wind energy plants.
It was recently revealed that the Rockefeller fund, set up by members of the powerful Rockefeller family, is backing one of Mainstream’s projects in Africa.
