The Darby International Capital Group inaugurated the Kairós wind farm in the municipality of Icapuí, 204 kilometers from Fortaleza, capital of Ceará. The investment was in the order of R$ 750 million. The wind energy to be produced can supply 260 thousand homes, which corresponds to a city the size of Teresina, capital of Piauí.
Located on the coast of Ceará, Kairós is made up of five wind farms in an area of ??1,100 hectares. The generating park has an installed capacity of 112.5 megawatts (MW), with 25 V150-4.5MW type wind turbines. All the wind turbines in the project were produced in Aquiraz, Ceará.
During the construction phase of the wind farm, 1,200 jobs were created. It is estimated that 60 people will be hired in the operation and maintenance of the project. “It is a very important investment for the State of Ceará and very important for Brazil, because we have to take advantage of clean energy for a new economy,” said the governor of Ceará, Elmano de Freitas.
The director of Darby International, Ricardo Roccia, said that the project is a very important milestone and “represents the beginning of a growth cycle for the country in renewable energies.”
The implementation of wind energy projects in Brazil has been declining since 2022, according to data from the Brazilian Association of Wind Energy and New Technologies (ABEEólica). This happened for several reasons, such as competition with photovoltaic energy systems that greatly increased their share in the Brazilian electricity matrix, generation cuts that brought losses to wind farms and centralized generation photovoltaic parks, especially those located in the Northeast.
At the end of 2024, ABEEólica predicted that wind projects would be re-implemented at a faster pace starting in 2026 to also meet the demands generated by future green hydrogen plants that will require a lot of clean energy.
However, some hydrogen sector ventures, mainly in Europe, are evaluating their investments, analyzing the possibility of including biomass in the hydrogen production process so that the fuel has a more competitive production process.
