Enel starts operations of Cristalândia Wind Farm in Brazil

Enel, through its Brazilian renewable subsidiary Enel Green Power Brasil Participações ("EGPB"), has begun operation of its Cristalândia wind farm, which has a total installed capacity of 90 MW. The facility is located in the municipalities of Brumado, Rio de Contas and Dom Basilio, in Brazil’s north-eastern state of Bahia.

“We are extremely pleased to announce that Enel is commissioning yet another renewable facility awarded through a public tender,” stated Carlo Zorzoli, Enel’s Country Manager in Brazil. “In Bahia, where Cristalândia wind farm is located, we manage as much as 1.3 GW of renewable capacity both in operation and under construction, leveraging on the state’s huge wealth of green energy sources. Across Brazil, we are striving to support the country’s economy in the most responsible way by contributing to the diversification of the energy mix through renewables and implementing sustainable initiatives aimed at creating shared value at the local level.”    

The Group invested approximately 190 million US dollars in the construction of Cristalândia, which was awarded to EGPB through the Leilão de Fontes Alternativas (LFA) public renewable energy auction in April 2015. The wind project is supported by 20-year power purchase agreements with a pool of Brazilian electricity distribution companies.

The wind farm is capable of generating around 350 GWh per year, enough to meet the annual energy consumption needs of more than 170,000 Brazilian households while avoiding the emission of about 118,000 tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere.

In line with the Creating Shared Value (CSV) model adopted by the Group, which aims to combine business development and local community needs, EGPB has carried out a set of CSV initiatives in the areas neighbouring the plant, such as creative recycling workshops with local communities, enabling income generation through the reuse of materials used in the plant’s construction, including pallets transformed into furniture and tarp used to produce handcrafts to be sold in the local market.

In the state of Bahia, Enel Group’s subsidiary EGPB currently operates a total of 711 MW of wind and solar capacity and is building an additional 600 MW of projects in these two renewable technologies.

In Brazil, the Enel Group, through its subsidiaries EGPB and Enel Brasil, has a total installed renewable capacity of 1,659 MW, of which 490 MW from wind power, 279 MW from solar PV and 890 MW from hydropower, as well as close to 900 MW of capacity currently in construction, of which 352 MW from wind and 541 MW from solar power.

Enel Green Power, the Renewable Energies division of Enel Group, is dedicated to the development and operation of renewables across the world, with a presence in Europe, the Americas, Asia, Africa and Oceania. Enel Green Power is a global leader in the green energy sector with a managed capacity of 38 GW across a generation mix that includes wind, solar, geothermal, biomass and hydropower, and is at the forefront of integrating innovative technologies like storage systems into renewable power plants.