 |
|
|
Wind Energy Finding a Place in Brazil |
|
By Mario Osava*
As the country continues to suffer electricity shortages, the power of wind becomes increasingly attractive, prompting the Brazilian government to draw up plans aimed at producing more than 1,000 megawatts from this alternative source by 2003.
RIO DE JANEIRO - Wind energy is moving – politically - with full sails in Brazil, largely due to the fact that electricity shortages since June have forced 70 percent of the population to cut back on energy consumption, and sent the authorities scrambling to come up with solutions.
An emergency program for wind power, known as Proeolica and approved by the Brazilian government in July, is aimed at achieving a generating capacity by December 2003 of 1,050 megawatt hours, 50 times the output potential for this source of energy today.
This goal is backed by the guarantee of wind energy purchases by the state-run Eletrobras over the next 15 years at a minimum price of 60 dollars a megawatt. On top of this, there are incentives that favor those projects that go online the soonest.
Proeolica creates an attractive market for local and foreign companies alike, such that the goal will surely be met and surpassed, Everaldo Feitosa, coordinator of the Brazilian Wind Energy Center (CBEE), said in a conversation with Tierramérica.
The potential for wind energy generation in Brazil is, according to preliminary estimates, 143,000 megawatt hours, says Laura Porto, engineer and general coordinator of the Renewable Energy Division at the Ministry of Mining and Energy.
That figure represents twice the country's current energy-generating capacity, which is largely based on hydroelectric dams.
Wind energy is not economically feasible in all areas, but is considered possible in nearly 20 percent of Brazilian territory and, says Porto, this country ''could ultimately even export electricity.''
One of the most promising regions in Brazil is the northeast, which is worst off as far as water resources, but much favored by the winds. According to the CBEE's Feitosa, the northeast alone could have an ''effective capacity'' of approximately 2,100 megawatts within four or five years.
The costs of wind energy production in Brazil are still nearly 70 percent higher than those related to hydroelectric production. But there is a tendency for wind energy to become cheaper, agree experts.
In contrast, the costs of hydroelectric energy are on the rise, especially in environmental terms, because it requires the flooding of extensive forested or farming areas in order to create the reservoirs. And transmission is costly as the rivers that can be used to generate electricity are usually far from the urban centers that consume the electricity produced, points out the renewable energy official Porto.
Wind energy has also gained ground in the technological and legislative arenas. Brazil is already set up to produce the wind turbines - and the industry is expanding. The Germany-based Wobben corporation inaugurated its second turbine manufacturing plant in this South American country in early September.
Additionally, Brazil has ''some of the best legislation in the world,'' which assures the economic viability of the best wind fields, asserts Feitosa.
The government is currently engaged in efforts to increase electricity imports from neighboring Argentina, Uruguay and Venezuela, and natural gas imports from Bolivia and Argentina to fuel its thermoelectric plants in a bid to overcome the national energy crisis with two to three years.
But the final hour for diversifying energy sources has definitely come.
* Mario Osava is an IPS correspondent.
|
