Argentina - Country's largest wind energy plant opens in Patagonia

The Rawson wind farm is being constructed by the Emgasud company. According to Emgasud spokesman Carlos Serrano the Rawson wind farm will shortly be joined by a second wind power plant in the Patagonian tourist centre at Puerto Madryn and once both are fully operational Argentina will have one of the major wind energy poles in South America.

President Cristina Fernandez opened in Patagonia the largest wind farm in Argentina. The Rawson Aeolic wind power will eventually generate 80 MW with Vestas' wind turbines.

Located 1.500 kilometres south of Buenos Aires in windy Patagonia, the wind farm so far has 27 Vestas built wind turbines, with a 50 MW capacity and another 16 MW to be installed in the first half of next year will total the 80 MW with an overall investment of 144 million dollars.

The Rawson wind power plant will be complemented with a second wind farm in the Patagonian tourist centre at Puerto Madryn, and once both are fully operational Argentina will have one of the major wind energy poles in South America, said Carlos Serrano, spokesperson for Emgasud, the company involved in the enterprise.

President Cristina Fernandez said that another 34 projects involving renewable energy are in process totalling 910 MW with an investment of 2.1 billion dollars.

According to the World Wind Energy Association, WWEA, energy from renewable sources in 2010 increased 23% globally. Wind energy totals 196.630 MW with Asia clearly leading, 54%, with China alone representing half the effort. Europe follows with 27%; North America, 16.7%; Latin America 1.2% and Africa, 0.4%.

Chile has 23 wind energy projects finished or in process; Uruguay plans to reach 30% of its power needs with wind power by 2020; and Brazil is developing three huge wind farm in the north east of the country.

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