news release
spic website grassroots feature: story behind sep mozura wind park
on november 18, 2019, the sky finally cleared up after a week of rain. the wind park spreading 14 kilometers along the slopes of mount mozura in montenegro set off a magnificent coastline of the adriatic sea. the inauguration ceremony of mozura wind park, the first trilateral cooperation project invested by china in the renewable energy sector in europe, will be held today. sheng baojie, ceo of sep (malta) holding ltd. (sepm), has been busy preparing the event ever since he received the notice from maltese energy minister joe mizzi in mid-october confirming that both the prime ministers of malta and montenegro will attend the inauguration ceremony. in the past 30 days, sheng baojie and his team of only a few people has never let up for a moment, implementing every detail of ceremonial reception. after 62 months of preliminary development and construction, mozura wind power project will come into the limelight, with the maltese and montenegrin prime ministers and chinese government officials as well as more than 100 prestigious guests invited to celebrate this grand occasion.
the 46 mw mozura wind power project in montenegro is a derivative project under the package agreement on sep's investment in malta's energy sector. sheng baojie still remembered when he accompanied konrad mizzi, then energy minister of malta, and sep chairman wang yundan to montenegro for the first time in october 2014. despite the tiredness of the journey, they started the negotiation right away from the afternoon until midnight. as the first renewable energy cooperation project between malta and sep in the overseas market, towards which the maltese government also assumed a serious attitude, the project adopted a very complete and thorough business architecture, and construction and operation model, took malta as a regional development platform, and cooperated with enemalta, envision and other enterprises in project contracting, technical consulting, finance, insurance, etc. to form an international tripartite cooperation framework for joint development. in the preliminary stage, the responsibilities and obligations of all investors would be locked, in order to give play to the advantages of various parties and achieve the big goal of multi-win.
from winning the project approval from spic in april 2015 to going into full trial operation in april 2019, sheng baojie had been traveling frequently between china, malta and montenegro and participating in numerous project negotiations. due to the different interest demands, management concepts and cultural backgrounds of all parties, the complexity of project operation has greatly increased, and thus the project team has done a great deal of work to balance the relationship between all parties. at the end of october 2017, as the equity transfer affected the construction schedule of the project and could even impede the timely commercial operation of the project, the project team made intensive negotiations with the cooperative partners, made revisions to the provisional definitive agreement 36 times within just one month, and finally managed to persuade all the investors, which realized the milestone of first concrete date in november 2017.
every staged progress of the project has received the common attention from the governments of the three countries, which is inseparable from its significance. as the second demonstration wind farm in montenegro, mozura wind power project not only contributes to the government of montenegro in attracting foreign investment, increasing employment, creating government tax revenue and promoting economic growth, but also has a great significance for increasing the proportion of local renewable energy, reducing carbon emissions and fulfilling the commitment to green energy development when joining the eu. as far as malta is concerned, the success of energy reform achieved by sep in malta has strengthened its confidence in going global, demonstrated the good results of the electricity system reform in malta, and enhanced the international influence of the island country. as for china, not only the chinese equipment, standards, capital and technologies of the country have been exported to europe, but also spic and sep joined hands with the eu member states in going global, and entered the market of montenegro as an eu investor, which was lauded by chinese premier li keqiang as a new achievement of "17 1" cooperation at the eighth leaders' meeting of china and central and eastern european countries.
"it's an innovative and successful cooperation model, which brings two different cultures together and takes them to a new level," said joe mizzi, minister for energy and water management of malta. mozura project will provide electricity for 100,000 residents after commercial operation, which will greatly improve the stability of the grid, said montenegrin minister of economy dragica sekulic.
in the future, spic will continue to adopt the new business model of promoting china-eu cooperation and joint development of third-party market. just as maltese prime minister joseph muscat said with spic chairman qian zhimin during their meeting, "the success of mozura project in montenegro is a new start of our cooperation. in the future, we will further promote and replicate the cooperation model in montenegro, and further deepen the cooperation between both sides outside the island of malta."
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