Brazil's QGER to invest USD 2.6bn in wind power projects by 2020

Dec 16, 2013 - Brazilian renewable energy developer Queiroz Galvao Energias Renovaveis (QGER) plans to invest BRL 6 billion (USD 2.575bn/EUR 1.872bn) to reach wind power installed capacity of 1.45 GW by 2020, local business daily Valor reported on Friday.

As part of this strategy, QGER will start in January the commercial operation of its first wind park, the 65.1-MW Icarai, in the northeastern Ceara state. At the beginning of December, the country's electricity sector watchdog Aneel cleared the park's test operation, QGER's president Max Xavier Lins told Valor.

Also, the company will start in January the test operation of the 56.7-MW wind complex Taiba and the 75.6-MW Amontada, located in Ceara. These three projects required investments of BRL 700 million.

Furthermore, QGER is building a fourth wind power complex of 145.8 MW capacity in the northeastern Rio Grande do Norte state. The project, Riachao, will start commercial operation in November 2014. The company's fifth park of 400 MW in neigbouring Piaui state is also seen to start operation in the second half of 2014.

The five complexes form part of QGER's first investment phase estimated to add 800 MW capacity thanks to BRL 3 billion investments.

According to Lins, the Icarai and Taiba projects have contracted their output at the government's reserve auction held in 2009, while the other projects will sell their output on the Brazilian free electricity market. Lins assured that QGER already has signed long-term power supply contracts which makes the investments in them feasible.

Apart from the wind projects, QGER operates a 19-MW small-scale hydroelectric power plant (HPP) in southeastern Minas Gerais state and two biomass thermal plants with total capacity of 13 MW in the northern Maranhao state.

QGER is a subsidiary of local industrial conglomerate Queiroz Galvao.

(BRL 1.0 = USD 0.429/EUR 0.312)

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