Nordex secures huge Brazilian order from Statkraft

Nordex will supply 91 of its newly uprated N163/5.7MW turbines for a 519MW Statkraft wind cluster in Brazil.

Statkraft’s 519MW Ventos de Santa Eugênia Ventos de Santa Eugênia (519MW) OnshoreUibaí, Bahia, Brazil, Central & South America Click to see full details complex in Bahia, north-eastern Brazil will more than double the Norwegian developer’s renewable energy capacity in the country.

The project consists of ten separate onshore wind farms. Nordex’s N163/5.7MW is the largest onshore wind turbine model Statkraft will have used to date.

Construction is due to start in January 2021, the first turbines are due to be in operation in September 2022, and the cluster is expected to be completed by June 2023.

Ventos de Santa Eugenia is part of a wider 1.1GW development Statkraft is building in Brazil. It had originally acquired a 664MW project from private equity fund Fundo de Investimento em Participações Multiestratégia in Q3 2019, but has since expanded this development by 450MW.

Much of the output from Ventos de Santa Eugenia is contracted through long-term power deals secured in Brazil’s power auction in October 2019, and through separate corporate power purchase agreements, Statkraft explained.

It claimed that the projects are being implemented in accordance with Brazil’s strict environmental and social permitting and monitoring systems. They will include “limited land acquisition, no resettlement, low environmental impacts and no impacts on red-listed (endangered) species”, it added.

Statkraft will also carry out corporate social responsibility activities for nearby communities, focused on education and infrastructure improvements, it claimed.

The developer has no operational wind power capacity in Brazil, according to Windpower Intelligence, the research and data divison of Windpower Monthly.

To date, the Ventos de Santa Eugenia is the largest wind farm due to be equipped with Nordex’s N163/5.7MW model. The German manufacturer had installed the first turbine from its 5.X platform last month, with a new gearbox and scaled-up electrical system boosting its power rating to 5.7MW.