ACCIONA invests 550 million dollars in the largest wind park in Latin America to supply electricity to CEMEX in Mexico

The president of the Mexican Republic, Felipe Calderón, inaugurated today the first stage of the Eurus wind park in Oaxaca.

With a capacity of 250 MW, the facility will produce enough electricity to supply a city of 500,000.

37 MW have already been installed in the park and the facility will be in operation in the fourth quarter of 2009.

ACCIONA Energy is constructing a 250.5 MW wind park in Oaxaca, Mexico, whose power will be bought by the Mexican cement company Cemex for its own use. The park, named Eurus, represents an investment of 550 million dollars (427 million euros) and will be the largest in Latin America in terms of installed power. The president of Mexico, Felipe Calderón, inaugurated the first stage of the park today, during an institutional ceremony in which he manifested his support for the development of renewable energies in his country.

Eurus is a self-supply project developed by ACCIONA Energy and Cemex. It will consist of 167 wind turbines of 1.5 MW each, employing Acciona Windpower technology. The park is located in Juchitán, Oaxaca, in southern Mexico, on an estate that covers 2,500 hectares, leased in the Ejido La Venta in the Tehuantepec isthmus.

The power generated at the Eurus wind park would be enough to cover the power needs of a city of 500,000 people and will avoid the equivalent emission of 600,000 tonnes of CO2 per year, that is, approximately 25% of total emissions generated by a population of the abovementioned size. The plant will cover 25% of the energy requirements of Cemex in Mexico.

Eurus will be one of the largest wind parks in the world and represents the second-largest reduction of emissions registered with the United Nations under the Kyoto Protocol. It will also have one of the highest ratios of emission reduction per installed capacity in the world, thanks to its major wind power potential.

During construction, the project has created over 850 direct jobs in the area.

At this time, 37.5 MW are already in place at the park and the facility is expected to come into operation during the fourth quarter of 2009.