Greentech Lead U.S: GE announced partnership with Renova
Energia, a wind energy solutions provider in Brazil, to build 230 GE 1.68-82.5
wind turbines.
The deal is worth $394 million. All 230 turbines have
a10-year operating contract, which will be managed from GE’s services center.
The purchase is part of Renova’s expansion plans that began in November 2011
with the construction of the Alto Sertao 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 Sertao II Wind Farm is
in the cities of Caetite, Guanambim and Igapora, in the southeast of Bahia
state, in Brazil.
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,” said 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.
“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.”
GE 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, the company said.