Wind energy in Brasil: GE to supply 346 megawatts of wind turbines

General Electric agreed to supply 346 megawatts of wind turbines worth as much as 1.3 billion reais ($491 million) to the Brazilian renewable-energy developer Casa dos Ventos.

Casa dos Ventos will use 216 megawatts of equipment at the Sao Clemente wind farm in Pernambuco state and another 130 megawatts for the Tiangua project in Ceara state, according to Lucas Araripe, the developer’s new-business director. Work on the Tiangua project is expected to begin in the first half of the year.

asa dos Ventos is negotiating another deal with turbine suppliers for about 350 megawatts of turbines worth as much as 1.5 billion reais, Araripe said. Casa dos Ventos is the biggest wind developer in Latin America, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance. It has more than 1 gigawatt of wind farms under construction or in operation, and has sold 3.5 gigawatts of projects to other companies.

GE’s turbine factory in Brazil is reaching maximum capacity with the orders, according to Reinaldo Garcia, GE’s chief executive officer for Latin America. The wind segment was the fastest growing  among GE’s business units in 2014, he said last month.

Brazil has about 6 gigawatts of installed wind power capacity, according to the industry trade group known as Abeeolica. That will grow to more than 22 gigawatts in the next decade, said the country’s energy research agency, known as EPE.