Masdar Commissions 154 MW Wind Farm in Serbia

en.Wedoany.com Reported - On September 14, Masdar and Taaleri Energia announced the official commissioning of the 154 MW Čibuk 2 onshore wind farm in the South Banat region of Serbia. The project is jointly owned 50/50 by Masdar and Taaleri Energia, features a total of 22 Nordex wind turbines, and shares a grid connection point with the adjacent 158 MW Čibuk 1 wind farm. With the commissioning of Čibuk 2, the combined installed capacity of the two phases reaches 312 MW.

Čibuk 2 is located approximately 40–50 kilometers east of Belgrade, and the project entered the construction phase in the third quarter of 2024. Taaleri previously disclosed that the project is equipped with 22 Nordex turbines of 7 MW each, with a designed annual power generation of approximately 330 GWh. Masdar's latest commissioning announcement updated the annual generation figure to a maximum of approximately 336 GWh.

The project development entity is Masdar Taaleri Generation, established by Masdar and Taaleri Energia, and is being advanced in cooperation with local Serbian developer New Energy Solutions. In addition to supplying the turbines, Nordex has also been awarded a 35-year long-term operation and maintenance contract and is responsible for availability guarantees.

Čibuk 2 reached financial close in September 2024. The project secured €144 million in non-recourse project financing provided by UniCredit, Erste Group, and Erste Bank Serbia. The financing structure also includes support from the EU's InvestEU mechanism.

Most of the project's power generation is price-locked through a euro-denominated, inflation-linked Contract for Difference (CfD) signed with Serbia's state-owned power company Elektroprivreda Srbije (EPS). This arrangement provides a clear revenue mechanism for the project's long-term power sales.

Together, Čibuk 2 and Čibuk 1 constitute the largest wind cluster currently in Serbia. Čibuk 1 was commissioned in 2019 with an installed capacity of 158 MW. The two phases have a combined installed capacity of 312 MW, and Masdar discloses that the entire Čibuk wind cluster corresponds to cumulative foreign direct investment of more than €500 million.

During the construction phase of Čibuk 2, more than 1,000 personnel participated in construction, subcontracting, and project management, most of whom came from the local South Banat area. After the project's commissioning, Masdar also holds a development pipeline of more than 200 MW of solar, wind, and battery energy storage projects in Serbia.