Brazil and Mexico have a leading role in wind power in Latin America, with Peru, Venezuela, Uruguay and Chile also seeing a significant capacity growth. Enel Green Power is playing its part in its development.
Latin America is making an important contribution to the global development of wind power. While last year was a period of dampened growth for the industry – although there was a 36,134-megawatt increase in capacity, for the first time in eight years there were fewer plants built than the previous year – worldwide the trend for 2014 has so far matched pace of previous years. Latin American markets guaranteed an expansion during an up and down 2013, compensating for the drop in generation and building that took place in other countries.
The numbers highlight the leading role played by Brazil and Mexico in wind power in Latin America: Brazil has put online 948MW of new capacity, leading to 32.4 percent growth in total capacity, while Mexico has increased its capacity by a 22.3 percent with the installation of 476MW. Thanks to these accomplishments, the continent accounted for 43.3 percent of the 4.7 gigawatts of new installed capacity in the USA, Canada and South America in 2013. Other emerging and healthy markets include Argentina (an increase of 76MW), Peru (30MW), Chile (200MW), Venezuela (149MW) and Uruguay (11MW). In all these countries the share of wind power in the energy mix has increased, while development programmes and tenders will ensure growth in the coming years.
EGP has offered a huge contribution to wind power expansion in Latin America,and it is also aiding growth in countries whose wind power industries are in general decline. In the first quarter of 2014, EGP’s wind power production grew by 889 gigawatt-hours. And besides developing its own market in Brazil and neighbouring countries, EGP is also driving the expansion of wind power capacity in Europe and the rest of the American continent, with more than 800MW under construction, ongoing projects exceeding 1,600MW and 800MW set to be installed at new work sites.