Major German onshore wind and solar developer WPD has made a plea for additional employees to implement its extensive project pipeline.
The company is looking for new staff across all areas of project development, construction and operation.
“We are looking for highly qualified specialists and new professionals – for our home market locations in Germany and our nearly 60 branches in the European, American and Asian core markets – who are willing to work together with us on consistently implementing the energy transition,” said WPD executive board member Dr. Hartmut Brosamle.
The recent divestment of the company’s offshore sector has further strengthened the capital base of WPD Group.
“This will ensure our sustainable growth in both the wind onshore and PV sectors and will forge a very strong position for the future. Besides expanding our projects and reinforcing the teams, we are planning to double the company’s own 2.3GW portfolio in the next three to four years,” explained executive board member and CFO of WPD Björn Nullmeyer.
Last year, WPD financed 22 national projects with a capacity of 380MW in Lower Saxony, Brandenburg, Saxony-Anhalt, North Rhine-Westphalia, Thuringia, Hesse and Schleswig-Holstein.
Some of the projects with wind turbines from such manufacturers as Vestas, Enercon, GE and Nordex are already under construction and will be connected to the grid by 2023. In the coming years, the team will be working across Germany on a 4.5GW project pipeline for wind and solar.
Internationally, the financing of the Swedish wind farm Stollsaterberget, provided by KfW IPEX-Bank, was successfully completed in August.
The 47.2MW wind farm with eight turbines from Nordex will be commissioned at the end of 2023. The green electricity will be purchased by a large international tech company with which a 10-year Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) has been signed.
Work has started on erecting the turbines for the Finnish projects Karhunnevankangas with 33 turbines and Nuolivaara with 17 turbines of type Nordex N163 in the 5.7 MW class.
“But in France, too, we are currently working full speed ahead on the planning and implementation of a 2GW pipeline. Seven wind projects alone with a total volume of almost 90MW are currently under construction, and permits have been obtained for the first solar projects,” explains Dr. Brosamle.
Overseas, the team is working on projects in North America totalling 1.5GW; while the largest wind farm in South America powering 233MW is already on the grid in Chile.
“On the global scale, we see enormous growth rates in the Asian markets. We are reflecting this trend with project developments to the extent of around 800 MW in Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, the Philippines, Indonesia, Vietnam and Mongolia,” stresses the wpd executive board.