Two new wind farms under construction by the State Power Investment Corporation of China in Rio Grande do Norte will receive the first wind turbines produced in Brazil by the Chinese company Goldwind in 2025, the companies announced this Thursday (19).
Named Paraíso Farol and Pedra Amolar, the SPIC projects will have 17 wind turbines, totaling 105.4 megawatts (MW) of installed capacity, and will be located in Touros (RN). The forecast is for investments of around R$755 million.
Work should begin in January, and the first wind turbines should be delivered in the third quarter of next year. Both parks are expected to start operating in 2026.
Goldwind will install turbines at the site with 6.2 MW of power each and a rotor diameter of 182 meters, making them the largest equipment in the country in both size and capacity, the companies said.
SPIC’s wind turbines will be the first produced by Goldwind at the Camaçari (BA) factory, which opened in August this year and is the company’s first unit outside China.
Goldwind is betting on Brazil’s wind generation potential despite a bad market situation for the wind sector in Brazil, with a slowdown in new projects from the source due to oversupply of energy, which affected the entire supply industry and led to the closure of factories and the departure of large companies from the country in recent years.
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According to information from the Ministry of Mines and Energy at the time, Goldwind would have a capacity in Bahia of 150 units per year, producing equipment with a power of 5.3 to 7.5 MW each. The company is expected to invest R$100 million in the Brazilian market, from which it will be able to export to other South American countries in the future, said the ministry.
“This will be the first wind farm in Brazil to use the Goldwind GW182 turbine and also the first to be made in our factory. At the same time, it will be the largest turbine in size and capacity installed in Brazil. This is a significant milestone for both Goldwind and SPIC, as well as for the Brazilian wind market”, said Liang Xuan, CEO of Goldwind South America.
The manufacturer entered the Brazilian market a few years ago, with a supply contract for the CGN generator, also of Chinese origin. While it did not start producing in the country, the company was offering imported machines.
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The start of production in Camaçari reinforces the Brazilian wind industry, which in recent years has suffered a downsizing with the stoppage of the national manufacture of wind turbines by important multinationals, such as GE and Siemens Energy.
As for SPIC, the new wind farms expand the source’s representation in the company’s generating complex, currently more concentrated in solar and hydroelectric plants, adding up to a total of 4.06 GW of installed capacity in the country.
Last month, the Chinese generator announced a new solar project in Pernambuco in partnership with Recurrent Energy, with investments of around R$400 million.
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“All these projects make up our renewables cluster in the Northeast. The learnings and innovations implemented in the new parks will be important for the development of future projects, focusing on cutting-edge technology, sustainability, strategic partnerships, workforce training, Research & Development, among other aspects”, said Adriana Waltrick, CEO of SPIC Brazil.
The company also has a stake in the largest natural gas complex in Latin America, GNA (Gás Natural Açu), in São João da Barra (RJ).
