ENERGY/ENVIRONMENT-BRAZIL: Wind is Better than Rain

By Mario Osava Reprint | | Print |

Mario Osava

RIO DE JANEIRO, Mar 21 2002 (IPS) - It took an energy crisis, electricity rationing and threats of outages to drive home to Brazil the advantages of harnessing its ample wind power potential, in order to reduce its heavy dependence on hydroelectricity.

Wind power, which was virtually ignored by Latin America’s number one economy until energy rationing measures were put into effect last June, has suddenly begun to draw new attention. The National Agency of Electrical Energy, the government’s regulatory agency, approved 43 projects for wind power plants in December, to be built by 2005.

Wind energy, which currently has the capacity to generate just 21.2 megawatt hours, 0.03 percent of Brazil’s total installed electricity-generating capacity, will thus expand by a factor of 175, to 3,728 megawatt hours.

The new plants will make Brazil one of the five leading wind power-producing countries in the world, Everaldo Feitosa told IPS. Feitosa is the director of the Brazilian Centre for Wind Energy, which is linked to the Federal University of Pernambuco, in northeastern Brazil, the region that will benefit the most from the new wind power plants.

“There is now awareness that it is indispensable to diversify our sources of energy” to avoid new crises, said Feitosa. The rationing measures, which remained in effect for nine months, were adopted after two years of drought and a decade of scant investment in the energy industry.

Three arguments have stood in the way of developing wind power in Brazil, according to Feitosa. Until a few years ago, there was a widespread belief that the country did not have enough wind to generate significant amounts of energy. Later, it was said that there was not enough equipment on the international market to meet demand. The last argument was that Brazil would not be able to find interested investors.

But studies have found that Brazil has excellent wind power potential, especially in the arid northeast. The best quality winds, which are strong and regular, can generate 60,000 megawatts, said Feitosa. The country currently generates 75,400 megawatts, 90 percent of which is produced by hydropower.

The eagerness with which Spanish, French, German and Brazilian companies have presented projects for exploiting wind power in this country of 170 million has clearly demonstrated that lack of investment is not a real obstacle either.

Another six projects were submitted to the National Agency of Electrical Energy for approval in February, María Rosángela Cruz, the regulatory agency’s superintendent of Concessions and Authorisation of Electricity Generation, told IPS.

A German company, Wobben WindPower, opened its second factory of aerogenerators on Feb 18 in Pecém, an industrial complex with a port in northeastern Brazil. The company’s first factory is located in Sorocaba, near Sao Paulo, Brazil’s largest city.

In the northeast, wind power plants enjoy the additional advantage that winds blow stronger in the dry season, when hydropower supplies go down, Cruz added.

However, this alternative source of energy is still more expensive than conventional sources. Each megawatt of wind power costs an estimated 60 dollars in Brazil today, compared to between 40 and 45 dollars for electricity generated by natural gas, said Feitosa.

Gas is the source of energy that will play the biggest role in quickly increasing the country’s electricity-generating capacity over the next few years, he added. But, he pointed out, “it is also a major source of pollution,” and entails dependence on fuel imports, mainly from Bolivia.

Furthermore, he said, the price of natural gas is on the rise, which means that in just a few years, it will cost 55 to 60 dollars per megawatt to generate, which will make it nearly as expensive as producing wind power.

As a natural resource that will not disappear, wind offers a sure, as well as a clean, source of energy, which means it is an alternative that Brazil simply can no longer ignore, argued Feitosa. Another advantage is that wind energy plants can be built faster than conventional power plants, he added.

To consolidate the boom in wind power, all that is needed is new legislation that would allow investors to commit themselves to long-term contracts, while ensuring the purchase of the electricity they generate at a price that compensates the costs, he added. Congress is set to approve such a bill in the near future.

The rising use of wind power in Brazil is also in sync with the global trend. Wind energy-generating capacity rose 31 percent last year worldwide, to 23,300 megawatts, according to the U.S.-based Earth Policy Institute.