The project in the Serra d’Aire, is controlled by Eneólica, part of the Lena Group which is one of the corporate defendants in Operation Marquês, accused of channelling illicit funds to the former Prime Minister José Sócrates in return for lucrative contracts.

As the project dates back to 2009, it attracts the full green energy subsidy, payable to this privately owned company by Portugal’s taxpayers.

The 20 Megawatts capacity wind farm will cost an alleged €24 million and is the third wind project authorised by the current government under a tendering procedures carried out way back in 2008 and 2009, seemingly without a start date specified.

Eneólica is a subsidiary of Lena Energia SGPS, S.A., itself part of the Lena group whose boss, Carlos Santos Silva, is involved in Portugal’s largest ever corruption case.

The company has two wind farms – the Marvila wind farm (I), with an installed capacity of 12MW, also in the municipality of Batalha, in operation since 2008, and the Sicó Wind Farm with a capacity of 20MW in the mountain range of Lomba, Pombal, in operation also since 2008 and both heavily subsided by taxpayers.

Energy Secretary, Jorge Seguro Sanches’ office, confirmed that this third wind farm also is covered by a feed-in tariff whereby the private company gets paid well above the market price for energy produced.

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