Rising Oil Prices to Bolster Demand for Clean Energy, EDP Says

EDP Renovaveis SA (EDPR), the renewables unit of EDP-Energias de Portugal SA, expects higher oil prices to boost demand for cleaner and cheaper sources of energy.

“The renewable energy business model is based fundamentally on the need to produce cleaner and cheaper energy,” Chief Executive Officer Joao Manso Neto said in an interview in Lisbon yesterday. “The bigger the rise in oil prices the more it becomes evident that this tendency for the medium term is correct.”

Oil advanced for a seventh day in New York, the longest run of gains since February, to $90.65 a barrel in electronic trading. EDP, which says its renewable energy unit is the world’s third-biggest wind power producer, is investing in dams and wind turbines to cut reliance on fossil fuels.

While EDP Renovaveis expects to carry out a plan to invest 3.2 billion euros ($3.9 billion) through 2015 on wind capacity and expand to eastern Europe and Brazil, the Lisbon-based company will have no problem adjusting these investments if market conditions change, Manso Neto said.

“If profitable investment opportunities are not there or financing conditions are worse than expected we will have no problem adjusting” the program, he said.

The plan will help add 2.3 gigawatts of wind generation in markets such as Poland, Romania and Brazil, EDP Renovaveis said May 22. The company had 7.5 gigawatts of capacity at the end of 2011.

“Spain, the U.S. and Portugal are our most important markets,” Manso Neto said. “The sources of growth for the next phase of this plan will mainly be high-growth markets in eastern Europe and Brazil.”

EDP Renovaveis rose 0.4 percent to 2.706 euros as of 9:30 a.m. in Lisbon, giving the company a market value of 2.36 billion euros.

To contact the reporter on this story: Henrique Almeida in Lisbon at halmeida5@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Jerrold Colten at jcolten@bloomberg.net