Lula opens first integrated renewable energy complex

On Wednesday 22 March, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva attended the inauguration of the Neoenergia renewable energy complex in the municipality of Santa Luzia, Paraíba state. According to the government, this is Brazil's first renewable energy complex combining wind and solar photovoltaic generation.

In a speech, Minister of Mines and Energy Alexandre Silveira confirmed the government's intention to increase the share of clean energy in the country's generation fleet. In addition, he believes that businesses in this sector can be stimulators of industrialisation in the north-eastern region.

The NeoEnergy project, an investment of about R$3 billion (US$572.8 million), features simultaneous operation of wind and solar power plants using the same substation and transmission lines. This model aims to optimise the use of the electricity transmission grid through the complementarity of energy sources, as reported by Rede TV!, a partner of TV BRICS.

The company is located on 8,700 hectares in the municipalities of Santa Luzia, Areia de Baraunas, Sao Jose de Sabugi and Sao Mamede in the state of Paraíba. Around 250 families in the region have taken advantage of land leases to install wind turbines and photovoltaic panels. The complex generates 0.6 gigawatts of energy, enough to supply 1.3 million homes per year.

In its statement, the Presidency of the Republic highlighted progress in developing Brazil's clean energy capacity. "At the end of 2006, the year before the launch of the Growth Acceleration Programme (PAC) [infrastructure investment], the installed capacity of wind farms was 237 megawatts. The installed capacity reached 3,106 megawatts in 2014," the statement said.

Photo: flickr.com