South America « Renewbl – renewable energy news

Category: South America

GDF Suez and Eletrobras in agreement over energy project development

September 3rd, 2010 | Posted in General | No Comments

GDF Suez and Eletrobras (Brazil), have entered into a joint agreement for collaboration on the development of energy projects in South America. Under the agreement, the companies are to collaborate in research, project development, and energy production and transmission ventures, focusing on renewable energy sources, but also on other sources of energy as well. The scope of this joint agreement covers all the countries in Central and South America, and Africa. Within Brazil, though, the companies will assess and explore opportunities on a case-by-case basis.

[source: GDF Suez]

Enel Green Power awarded wind farm contracts in Brazil

September 3rd, 2010 | Posted in Wind | No Comments

Enel Green Power announced the company has been awarded development contracts for three wind farms in Bahia, Brazil, totalling in 90 MW of capacity. The projects are part of a plan to promote wind power as a clean source of electricity in Brazil.

The contract was awarded based on three projects with formidable wind conditions, and a capacity factor of about 50%, which means the installed wind turbines could generate power for 4000 hours equivalent annually, or twice the capacity factor of European wind farms.

Iberdrola developing 9 wind farms in Brazil

August 31st, 2010 | Posted in Wind | No Comments

Iberdrola Renovables has been awarded a contract for developing nine wind farms in Brazil, totalling in 258 MW of installed capacity. The contract has been awarded after Iberdrola was announced as the winner of the tender by Agencia Nacional de Energía Eléctrica (Aneel).

Iberdrola Renovables will be developing the wind farms in a consortium with Neoenergia, a Brazilian holding company. Once completed, in January 2013, Iberdrola is to supply the Brazilian government with electricity generated at the wind farms for twenty years.

The tender awarded a total of 50 wind farm projects (about 1.5 GW), five hydroelectric plant projects (101 MW), and a biomass facility (64 MW), to a variety of operators.

[source: Iberdrola Renovables]

Shell and Cosan in JV for ethanol and power from sugar cane in Brazil

August 26th, 2010 | Posted in Biomass | No Comments

Royal Dutch Shell and Cosan announced the companies have signed binding agreements for forming a joint venture for producing and commercializing ethanol and power from sugar cane. The companies will also indulge in distribution of a variety of industrial and transportation fuels through their distribution and retail network in Brazil. Additionally, the JV will also explore and pursue global scale production and sale of ethanol.

KL Energy and Petrobras in joint development agreement for KL's cellulosic ethanol proces

August 25th, 2010 | Posted in Biomass | No Comments

KL Energy Corporation and Petrobras have entered into a joint development agreement under which Petrobras is to aid KL Energy in further development and optimization of the company's cellulosic ethanol production process technology. KL Energy's previous demonstration project in Wyoming uses Ponderosa Pine feedstock, but the new and improved process will allow multiple feedstock sources at the same time, optimizing the production process.

Iberdrola Renovables and Neoenergia to develop wind farms in Brazil

August 17th, 2010 | Posted in Wind | No Comments

Río do Fogo wind farm in Brazil.

Iberdola Renovables and Neoenergia, a Brazilian energy holding company, partly owned by Iberdrola Group, have signed an MoU vowing to explore joint venture development of wind energy projects in Brazil. These projects would include both onshore and offshore wind farms.

The future joint venture will be equally owned by both companies, and will bid on tenders issued by Agencia Nacional de Energía Eléctrica, Brazil's state energy agency. These will include the 2010 Reserve Energy and A-3 2010 programs. Currently, Iberdrola Renovables owns and operates one wind farm in Brazil, with 49 MW of installed capacity.

[source: Iberdrola Renovables]

Mitsubishi starts operation at second methanol production plant in Venezuela

August 10th, 2010 | Posted in Biomass | Comments (1)

Mitsubishi Corp and Mitsubishi Gas Chemical have announced the start of prodcution operations at the second methanol plant in Venezuela, at Metanol de Oriente, METOR SA. The new METOR plant will be capable of outputting 850,000 tons of methanol annually.

Construction of the plant began in 2006, and was completed in March 2010. New production capacity will increase METOR's annual production capacity from 750,000 tons to about 1.6 million tons.

Even though methanol is used primarily for the production of downstream products such as chemicals – formalin, acetic acid – it is also used as fuel, and it is expected methanol is going to be widely used in the biodiesel industry in the future, which will result in growing demand for this product. Methanol production is heavily dependent on good access to natural gas sources, which is one of the reasons Mitsubishi chose Venezuela as the location for the production plants.

[source: Mitsubishi Corporation]

Sinohydro and Energia Argentina to cooperate in energy

August 5th, 2010 | Posted in General | No Comments

Sinohydro announced a signing of an MoU between Sinohydro and Energia Argentina, which happened in mid-July in China, for cooperation in energy. Emphasis was put on clean energy technologies such as hydropower and wind energy. A work group is being planned, which will carry out related works and practices.

This MoU is significant as it marks the beginning of Sinohydro's involvement in energy development projects in Argentina, representing a base for future expansion of the company's presence in the South American country.

[source: Sinohydro]

Isolux Corsan building ethanol plant in Colombia

July 31st, 2010 | Posted in Biomass | No Comments

Isolux Corsan has been awarded a contract from Bioenergy (Colombia), for building an industrial complex, part of which is to be a bioethanol production plant, which will be using sugar cane as the material source. The new plant will be able to process about 2.1 millino tons of cane annually. Additionally, as part of the complex, Isolux will be building a 40 MW cogeneration plant bagasse or sugar cane waste as fuel. Other facilities include milling, distillation and vinasse production using the same raw material. The new complex will be located in the Meta Department of Colombia, on former cattle ranch land. The total value of the contract is about USD 140 million.

This will be the first bioethanol project for Isolux Corsan, outside of Europe.

[source: Isolux Corsan]

Vestas opens office in Chile

July 19th, 2010 | Posted in Wind | No Comments

Vestas announced the opening of a company office in Chile last week. The new office is based in Santiago de Chile, the capital of Chile. The company is making a move into the Chilean wind energy market, and wants to have an office to support its sales and services in the country. The South American continent is very active regarding renewable energy development in the recent years. More and more projects are being developed, a lot of which are wind energy projects. Chile has significant wind energy resources, being a coastal country bordering the Pacific Ocean on the west.

In 2009 alone, Chile increased its installed wind capacity by 140 MW, but there is another 2000 MW of wind capacity under development, as the country progresses on its path to achieve the set goal of 20% renewables by 2020.

[source: Vestas]