The contract award took place in Rio de Janeiro, during the second tender process for renewable energies in the country, organised by the Agencia Nacional de Energía Eléctrica (Aneel).
Iberdrola Renovables has committed to supply the electricity generated at these facilities to the Brazilian government for a 20-year period, starting in January 2013. The annual amount of the contract awarded yesterday by Aneel is about €60 million (130 million reales).
The company was awarded the most megawatts during the tender process, in which contracts for 50 wind farms (1,520 MW), five hydroelectric plants (101 MW), and a biomass facility (64 MW) were granted to several different operators.
This contract is the first to originate from the memorandum of understanding (MOU) between Iberdrola Renovables, and Neoenergia, in which they committed to work together to develop and jointly operate onshore and offshore wind farms in Brazil.
The goal of the agreement is to capitalise on the experience of the world leader in the wind industry and the market position of the top power distributor in north-eastern Brazil, with its 8.8 million customers. Similarly, the agreement aims to leverage both companies’ financial strength to drive growth in one of Latin America's most promising wind markets.
Within the framework of the agreement, Iberdrola Renovablesand Neoenergia, who are considering eventually forming a 50-50 joint venture, announced that they would jointly participate in the future tenders held by Brazil's Agencia Nacional de Energía Eléctrica, including the one held yesterday.
Iberdrola Renovables already has one wind farm in Brazil, the Río do Fogo farm in the state of Río Grande do Norte. The site has installed capacity of 49 MW. The company also has assets in Mexico at the La Ventosa (80 MW) wind farm, which is in operation, and the La Venta III (103 MW) site, which is under construction. It ended the first half of 2010 with installed capacity totalling 11,406 MW: 11,010(1)(1) See explanation MW in wind farms and 342 MW in mini-hydro facilities.
Iberdrola regards Brazil, where it has operated since the late 1990s, as one of the key countries in its Latin American expansion. Through Neoenergia, Iberdrola is the leading electricity distributor in north-eastern Brazil, accounting for more than 44% of the regional market at the end of 2009.
The distributors in which Iberdrola holds stakes, Cosern (Rio Grande state), Celpe (Pernambuco state) and Coelba (Bahía state) supplied 28,300 GWh to nearly 8.8 million users in 2009. As for the generation business, the company managed capacity of 1,340 MW last year, with attributable output exceeding 2.85 billion kWh.
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