Brazil’s Petrobras Opens Wind Farm Ahead Of Schedule

The wind farm was built in partnership with Electrobras, Alubar Energia and Wobbin WindPower. The company, an increasingly large player in the oil sector as it develops huge offshore reserves, says the deployment of the farm “is aligned with Petrobras’ strategy of becoming an energy company with a high degree of environmental responsibility.”

Each of the four wind power sites in the complex is fitted with 52 wind turbines of 2Megawatts each giving each of the four total output of 104 MW, enough to supply 350,000 people.

Long a world leader in alternate energy sources such as ethanol and bio-diesel, Petrobras announced today that its first complete wind farm, a complex of four separate installations in the Northeastern state of Rio Grande do Norte, has now come on line, eight months ahead of schedule.

The state-controlled energy giant, second largest energy company in the world, also second largest company of any type, by market capitalization, according to Bloomberg, has long been heavily involved with alternate energy-non fossil fuels. This coupled with massive offshore producing fields and reserves estimated at 100Billion bbl., guarantee Brazil´s energy independence and make Brazil the largest non-OPEC petroleum seller.

The wind energy complex is now operating commercially generating Aeolic energy and selling electricity into the National Grid, the National Interconnected System. The four separate installations in the complex together represent an investment of R$424Million.

Each of the four0 wind power sites in the complex is fitted with 52 wind turbines of 2Megawatts each giving each of the four total output of 104 MW, enough to supply 350,000 people. Each turbine, wind turbines actually, weighs approximately 300 tons in a concrete and steel tower 108 meters in height and a three-blade propeller of 42-meter long fiberglass blades. Each unit’s transmission system is equipped with an internal 34.5-kilovolt (kV) distribution network, a 34.5/138-kV transformer substation, and a 138-kV transmission line.

The wind turbines are built by Wobben, a Brazilian company funded by Enercon, Gmbh, a German company generally acknowledged to be a world leader in the field with more than 20 years´ experience. But the turbines are manufactured by a Brazilian company at three different factory sites here in Brazil.

Wobben´s Brazilian-built turbines have also been exported from Brazil to other countries. This is another example along with automobile makers, electronics manufacturers, and others in a growing trend of foreign manufacturers selling here in Brazil goods they manufacture here in Brazil at Brazilian companies staffed with Brazilian executives, managers, technicians and workers.

By José Santamarta, www.evwind.com