The Ventos de Santa Eugenia project is a 518.7MW onshore wind power project being implemented by Europe’s leading renewable energy producer Statkraft in the Brazilian state of Bahia.
Statkraft acquired the Ventos de Santa Eugênia and the Ventos de São Vitorino, two wind projects located in Uibai and Ibipeba totalling 660MW, from Salus-Fundo de Investimento em Participações Multiestrategia in October 2019.
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The project is part of Statkraft’s goal of developing 6GW of wind energy globally by 2025. Ventos de Santa Eugenia is its biggest wind power project in South America.
The construction works on the £341m ($445m) Ventos de Santa Eugenia project are expected to be started in January 2021 with the completion expected by June 2023. The project is expected to create up to 1,200 jobs during the construction period.
The first turbine operations at the site are expected to kick-start by September 2022. At full capacity, the project is expected to deliver up to 2.3TWh of clean electricity for approximately 1.17 million Brazilian homes annually.
Project location and site details
Located near the municipality of Uibai in Bahia, in north-eastern Brazil, the project has limited land acquisition permission and requires no resettlement of people. It has less impact on the environment and no impact on red-listed species or biodiversity of the area.
The site is in close proximity to the Brotas de Macaúbas wind complex in Bahia, which is owned by Statkraft (81.3%) and the Brazilian pension fund FUNCEF (18.7%). The complex comprises three wind farms with a total of 57 turbines of 1.67MW each and has an annual production of 322.3GWh.
Ventos de Santa Eugenia wind project make-up
The Ventos de Santa Eugenia wind project, along with the 75.6MW Serra de Mangabeira wind park, represents the first phase of the 1.1GW Ibipeba wind complex. It is being executed in accordance with environmental and social regulations outlined by the Brazilian government.
The project will comprise ten wind farms with a total of 91 Nordex 163/5.7MW turbines of 5.7MW each. The rotor blades of the turbine will measure 163m in diameter and will have a swept area of 20,867m2.
The turbines will be equipped with a high-speed gearbox, aerodynamic braking system, and double-fed asynchronous generator with a grid frequency of 50/60Hz.
Power purchase agreements
Statkraft signed 20-year power purchase agreements (PPAs) to sell 375.6MW of wind power, including 300MW from the Ventos de Eugenia complex and 75.6MW from the Serra da Mangabeira project, at a fixed average price of £20 ($24.3)/MWh beginning January 2025. The deals were part of the A-6 energy auction held in October 2019.
Approximately 40% of the expected output will be sold to the Brazilian distribution companies, while the remaining will be sold in the free market on the basis of spot prices or corporate PPAs.
The A-6 energy auction enabled natural gas thermal and hydroelectric plants apart from the wind power segment, which accounted for 1GW of combined installed power from 44 parks.
Six other wind investors who took part in the auction were Atlantic with nine wind farms for 218.5MW, EDF with five wind farms for 42MW, Copel with the Jandaíra complex for 92.4MW, Casa dos Ventos with eight parks in the Ventos de Santa Leia (RN) project for 67.2MW, and PEC Energia with six projects in Paraíba in the Serra do Seridó projects for 214.83MW.
