ACCIONA Windpower will manufacture wind turbines in Brazil

ACCIONA Windpower, an ACCIONA Group subsidiary dedicated to the manufacture and sale of wind turbines, will install an assembly plant for nacelles - the main component of a wind turbine - in the Brazilian state of Bahia. The announcement was made during the Brazil Windpower trade fair that opened today in Rio de Janeiro. The plant will be operational in the last quarter of 2014, and is intended to reinforce the company's commitment to the wind power market in Brazil, one with the greatest potential on a global level.  

The new facility is the company's second industrial initiative in the state of Bahia, following the inauguration of a wind turbine hub plant at Simões Filho, Bahia, in March. The new plant's production capacity will be 100 units of the AW3000 turbine, the most powerful and technologically advanced in the company's range, and 60 direct and 4000 indirect jobs will be generated in the process.

Through this project (and those adopted previously) ACCIONA Windpower will comply  with local content rules for the sale of wind turbines that the Banco Nacional de Desarrollo Econômico y Social (BNDES) imposes on wind power developers in order to obtain financing under special conditions.

The new ACCIONA Windpower plant recognises Brazil as an important market for the supply of the AW3000, a 3-MW capacity turbine that is available in models with rotor diameters of up to 125 meters on towers up to 140 meters high, in steel or concrete as required.

The plant will be ACCIONA Windpower's sixth in the world. As well as the hub production facility in Brazil it has three wind turbine assembly plants (two in Spain and one in the USA) and one blade plant (also in Spain).

The new plant will produce wind turbines for projects in Brazil from the end of 2014. ACCIONA Windpower is already supplying 3-MW turbines for a 120 MW project by CPFL in the state of Rio Grande do Sul, and in 2014 will supply 210 megawatts for two wind power projects of Voltalia in Río Grande do Norte.

This will give ACCIONA Windpower access to several business opportunities for its AW3000 machine in the Brazilian wind power market. It is a high-quality, competitive turbine perfectly adapted to the specific wind power potential of the country.

ACCIONA in Brazil

ACCIONA Group is also present in Brazil through ACCIONA Infraestructuras, which is currently building a part of the northern section of the Rodoanel Mario Covas, one of the main beltways around Sao Paulo, following a 700-million-dollar award. Another major project in this field is the extension and operation of the BR-393/RJ highway between the states of Minas Gerais and Rio de Janeiro.

ACCIONA Service has been present in Brazil for over a decade with its subsidiary Forwarding, dedicated to customized logistics and transport solutions, and ACCIONA Agua provides operation and maintenance services in the Arrudas water treatment plant in Minas Gerais state.