Offshore wind energy promises to boost Brazil’s future

With around 7.491 kilometers of coastline, Brazil has immense potential for some of the most modern renewable energy technologies: offshore wind power, which uses fixed or floating wind turbines installed offshore.
The country is among the highlights of a recent study on the subject, a product of the Administrative Assistance Program for the Energy Sector and the International Finance Corporation, the arm of the World Bank Group for the development of the private sector.
Major offshore wind energy developers come to present plans for several gigawatts of new offshore wind projects in Brazil.

Estados	Extensão (km)	Percentual (%)
Bahia	932	12,4
Maranhão	640	8,7
Rio de Janeiro	636	8,6
Rio Grande do Sul	623	8,5
São Paulo	622	8,5
Amapá	598	8,1
Ceará	573	7,8
Pará	562	7,6
Santa Catarina	531	7,2
Rio Grande do Norte	410	5,7
Espírito Santo	392	5,3
Alagoas	229	3,1
Pernambuco	187	2,5
Sergipe	163	2,2
Paraíba	117	1,6
Paraná	98	1,3
Piauí	66	0,9
Total	7.379	100

Equinor asked Brazil’s federal environmental agency, IBAMA, for permission to carry out an environmental impact assessment that “will examine the possibility of developing an offshore wind farm project” in the country’s waters.

The developer does not have detailed plans, but local media reports that the developer is developing a wind farm in a 4.66 GW area divided into two 2.33 GW fields called Aracatu 1 and Aracatu 2.

The wind power projects are located in the neighboring states of Rio de Janeiro and Espírito Santo, not in the southeast of the country.