Brazil - GE Supplies Brazilian Wind Farm

The purchase is part of Renova’s expansion plans that began in November 2011 with the construction of the Alto Sertão II Wind Farm, comprising 15 parks with a total installed capacity of 386 megawatts, enough to supply power for a city of 1 million people. The contract is to supply energy sold by Renova in the Reserve Energy Auctions (LER) in 2010 and 2011. The Alto Sertão II Wind Farm is in the cities of Caetité, Guanambim and Igaporã, in the southeast of Bahia state, in Brazil.

“Scale and efficiency are increasingly important factors in the wind power segment and they have created a new scenario, which is more complex and which requires internationally recognized partners such as GE,” says Luiz Freitas, legal and purchasing director, Renova Energia. “This contract is the result of the value generated by a joint Renova and GE team in the pursuit of the state of the art in wind power technology in Bahia.”

The partnership between the two companies began in Brazil’s first exclusively wind energy auction in December 2009. “Renova built the largest wind farm in Brazil, and we are proud to take part in this project and to help boost wind power generation in Bahia,” says Jean-Claude Robert, leader of GE’s Renewable Energy business in Latin America. The farm, opened in July 2012, has 184 GE wind turbines producing a total of 294 megawatts.

This year, GE celebrates a decade in wind energy and has 20,000 wind turbines installed around the world. To date, 300 GE wind turbines have been installed in Brazil. In the next two years another more than 600 units will be installed in the country. This contract reinforces GE’s position of leadership in this sector. The company’s wind turbines comply with the requirements regarding Brazilian-made parts as set out by the National Economic and Social Development Bank (BNDES) in order to get credit from the FINAME line.