Brazil, with a firm commitment to onshore wind power (on land), also begins to look at new horizons.
Brazil, with a firm commitment to onshore wind energy (on land), also begins to look at new horizons with offshore power generation (offshore) in the northeast region of the country, whose extensive coastline and favorable weather conditions increase its potential .
The Brazil wind generation guidebook study, from the BTG Pactual bank, established that the states of “Maranhao, Piauí, Ceará and Río Grande do Norte generate constant winds of high average speeds, perfect conditions for additional offshore wind capacity ”.
Preliminary studies by the Federal University of Santa Catarina and the Energy Research Company (EPE), with data up to May 2019, consider that the potential for wind power generation in the high seas of Brazil is 11 thousand gigawatts, with 57 percent located only in the northeast region.
The state-owned National Electric Energy Agency (Aneel), regulator, told Efe that Brazil “has offshore wind power plant projects in different phases of implementation” and one of them, Asa Branca I, in Amontada, Ceará state, You have already received the so-called Grant Registry.
The Asa Branca I plant, with an expected generation capacity of 720 megawatts, is in the process of receiving the environmental license from the state-run Brazilian Institute of Environment (Ibama).
In February, the company BI Energy, of the Italian group Community Power, announced investments for 800 million euros (about 881.4 million dollars) in the wind farm of the coast of Caucaia, in the metropolitan region of Fortaleza, capital of Ceará, and which with 576 megawatts intends to provide electricity to 800 thousand residences.
The Subsidy Registry for this project in Caucaia is in process within the Aneel, “which must be granted in the coming months when all the requirements are met”, and will subsequently enter the process for environmental licensing, the regulatory body of the Energy sector in the country.
The coordinator of the Energy Nucleus of the Federation of Industries of Ceará (FIEC), Joaquim Rolim, cited that only on the coast of his state there is “a total potential of 117 gigawatts” viable for wind power generation, “being more in half at depths less than twenty meters. ”
In addition to Ceará, the Aneel said that twenty kilometers off the coast of Guamaré, in Rio Grande do Norte, the state oil company Petrobras develops the so-called ‘Off-shore Wind Generation Pilot Plant’, which has a capacity equal to or less than 5.0 megawatts does not require the Aneel Grant Registry.
In that case, explained the regulator, the Petrobras initiative, which is the pioneer in offshore wind power in the country, only requires Ibama’s environmental licenses.
Projects for offshore wind power plants add to those recently announced in the continental part of the northeast region.
Last month, Neoenergia, the second largest energy distributor in Brazil and controlled by Spain’s Iberdrola, announced an investment of 1.9 billion reais (about $ 475 million) in the construction of ten new parks in the so-called Oitis Wind Complex , which join two others already in development.
The twelve wind farms, located in the state of Bahia and planned to operate in full as of mid-2022, will have an installed capacity to generate 566.6 megawatts of energy.
In Piauí, the Italian group Enel Green Power is building the Lagoa dos Ventos wind power plant, between the municipalities of Lagoa do Barro, Dom Inocencio and Queimanda Nova, which will be the largest in South America with a capacity of 716 megawatts, according to the secretary Regional Ministry of Mines and Energy, Howzembergson de Britto.
In that complex of Piauí a factory of components for wind energy of the German-Spanish conglomerate Nordex Acciona is already installed.
