Wind energy in Brazil, Iberdrola receives boost to its wind power complex

Iberdrola, through its Brazilian subsidiary Neoenergia, has received a boost to the development of its Oitis onshore wind mega complex with the inclusion of much of the project under the Brazilian incentive regime.

The Brazilian Government has put under the so-called Special Regime of Incentives for Infrastructure Development (Reidi) a total of 10 of the 12 wind farms that will make up the complex, which with an installed capacity of 566.5 megawatts (MW) will be the Group’s largest onshore wind complex with wind turbines in Latin America.

La Reidi, launched in 2007, provides tax incentives to companies that invest in Brazil in infrastructure projects in sectors such as transport, ports or energy.

The Oitis complex will be located between the states of Piau and Bahia, in Northeast Brazil, and its complete commissioning is scheduled for mid-2022, with an investment of around 480 million euros.

Those 566.5 MW of wind energy power will lift Oitis to the Iberdrola group’s global onshore wind complex podium for installed capacity, just behind the American Peñascal, located in the state of Texas (606 MW), and just ahead from the Scottish Whitelee wind farm, located south of Glasgow (539 MW).

Brazil is one of the strategic markets for Iberdrola, a country in which investments of some 6,600 million euros are expected until 2022, to continue growing in the areas of production, transport and distribution of electrical energy.

Thanks to investments of 14,500 million euros over the last 20 years, the subsidiary Neoenergia has established itself as one of the main electricity operators in the country, with 700,000 kilometers of lines that meet the supply needs of more than 34 million people, and a generation capacity, operational or under construction, of 5,000 megawatts (MW).