Alcazar signs grid connection agreement for Bijela wind farm

Montenegro’s transmission system operator, CGES, has signed a contract with Alcazar Energy to connect a 118.8 MW wind power project to the grid.

Ivan Asanović, CEO of TSO CGES, and Enrico Casari, a principal of Alcazar Energy, signed the agreement on grid connection.

The contract with Alcazar on the Bijela facility is the sixth one that CGES has signed with renewables investors. The total envisaged capacity of all the solar parks and wind farms is now 1,327 MW. M Energy, Sun Horizon, Obnovljivi Izvori Energije, EE korita and Agenos Energy are developing the other projects.

CGES will finance the substation upgrade from a loan that it obtained from the EBRD

Alcazar’s wind power plant would be connected to the Brezna substation, located northwest of Montenegro. The facility is expected to be online in 2027. The substation must be upgraded to connect Bijela to the grid. CGES said it would finance the project with a loan obtained from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD).

Alcazar Energy acquired the Bijela project in September 2023. The original developers – Simes inženjering and Sistem MNE – have stayed on as support in the endeavor.

The project is estimated at USD 200 million

The project was estimated at USD 200 million at the time. In May, Alcazar announced its plans to complete two or three acquisitions of renewable energy projects over the next couple of quarters to reach 1 GW in capacity in the Western Balkans.

Only a month later, the company launched a 400 MW wind power investment in North Macedonia. Alcazar said it was a key step on its path to developing the largest renewable energy platform in the Western Balkans.

According to CGES, the Bijela wind farm will create more than 800 construction jobs and produce enough electricity to supply more than 20,700 households annually.

Dragan Perunović, CGES’s director of development and investment, and representatives of Alcazar Energy Marko Radulović and Dejan Milić attended the contract signing.