Contract Signed: juwi Will Build 50-Megawatt Wind Farm in Uruguay

Today juwi announced that it has sold the project rights for one of the largest wind farms in the company’s history and its first in South America, and has retained responsibility for building the wind farm. The wind farm will have a total installed capacity of 50 MW and is expected to achieve commercial operation in mid 2015. The wind farm is located in Cerro Largo, next to the town of Melo, in Northern Uruguay, and will be owned and operated by a subsidiary of an Italian energy provider. The estimated annual production of approximately 200,000 megawatt hours of clean electricity will be sold to the state-owned energy provider UTE (Usinas y Transmisiones del Estado) as part of a 20-year PPA (power purchase agreement).

“We have found a customer and strategic partner that is ideal for the realization of this project due to its great expertise in large wind farms,” explained juwi project developers Johannes Jacob and Wolfgang Schulenburg. For more than four years, juwi subsidiaries in Chile, Costa Rica and the US have worked together to reach this milestone. “We are proud to be able to transfer these development assets without any modifications and look forward to building the wind farm as soon as possible,” says Jacob. “All prerequisites for a successful project execution have been taken care of”, emphasized the two juwi employees.

The conditions for the construction and operation of a large wind farm could hardly be any better than in north-eastern Uruguay. The 20 modern turbines will be installed on a mountain range, leading to only limited intrusions into the landscape and at the same time facilitating road construction works that are necessary for the delivery of the components and the operation of the wind farm.

Furthermore, the site is known for its outstanding wind speed conditions. Wind measurements have shown constant wind speeds above the country’s average. Furthermore, it is also well located in terms of infrastructure: the wind farm is going to be constructed close to the planned high voltage power line between Brazil and Uruguay. Currently, there is a 150kV high voltage line, which will serve as the interconnection point of the wind farm to the Uruguayan electrical system. The project includes the construction of a substation and a high voltage line to the interconnection point.
Alejandro Lobo-Guerrero, CEO of juwi Chile Ltda., the subsidiary which has developed and will lead construction management for the project, believes that the sale and construction of the project shows the potential of the South American market. “We are not only completing an important part of our business planning for this year, but have also demonstrated that our management’s vision to invest in this market has been correct,” says Lobo-Guerrero. In previous years, juwi has installed more than 100 megawatts of wind energy projects in Latin America. This new project will now add an additional 50 megawatts to this portfolio.