Spain's Iberdrola plans big Brazil wind-power park
Date: 16-Sep-02
Country: BRAZIL
"They gave us a concrete plan and they applied for an environmental license in the state, so we hope the park will start working in 2004," the state infrastructure secretary Roberto Moussallem told Reuters by telephone.
Top Iberdrola officials in Brazil could not be reached for comment, but one aide confirmed such plans and said Spain's No. 2 energy company was studying projects to generate more energy from wind in Latin America's largest country.
Iberdrola is a major producer of power from wind. It also controls Bahia's Coelba utility.
The Bahia project calls to install 130 generators on high masts on an area of nearly 5,000 acres (20 square km). Together, they should produce 200 megawatts (MW) of electric power. Brazil only generates about 20 MW of aeolic power.
Work on the project worth some 550 million reais ($175 million), should start in the first half of 2003, Moussallem said. The higher cost of power produced by wind generators should be compensated by a new law that favors alternative energy sources, and the government's incentives, he added.
"This is no pilot project. We believe they are quite serious about this job, while Bahia wants more projects like that, and hopes that generators can be produced locally in the future."
He said the wind park near the town of Caetite, in the southwest interior of Bahia, would be in a previously studied windy area, and would not close the area of the arid, poor state to farmers or other activities on the ground.
Brazil relies on hydroelectric power for over 90 percent of its electricity needs, a dependence which triggered a tough energy shortage and rationing last year following a drought.
Plans to build new gas-fired plants have been slow in getting off the drawing board due to the need to import natural gas while the government controls electricity prices.