Far from the bright lights of Rio de Janeiro, the north-easterly Brazilian states of Ceara and Rio Grande del Norte are blessed with some of the strongest and most consistent winds in the world.
With such high potential, it is not surprising that Brazil’s wind energy industry has been taking off massively in the last couple of years: the country added 264 MW of capacity in 2009 and by mid-2010, another 180 MW were installed, making a total of 786 MW.
In December 2009, the Brazilian energy regulator hosted the first wind-only auction, which contracted 71 wind energy projects for a total capacity of 1,800 MW. Two additional auctions took place in August 2010, resulting in an additional more than 3 GW of tendered capacity for September 2013. continue reading »
Numerous reports in the past week indicate that Egypt, concerned about diminishing oil and gas supplies, is getting ready to expand its wind power sector.
Egypt, which is the world’s 16th most populous nation with more than 80 million people, has announced a plan to produce 2,600 megawatts of wind energy this year in collaboration with several EU states and Japan.
Egyptian media organisation Al-Masry Al-Youm reports Egyptian Minister of Electricity and Energy Hassan Younes as saying that the ministry had already raised funds for several wind farms — each with a capacity of 540 megawatts — in the Gulf of Suez. continue reading »
With an exciting battle between a brother and sister, the Breath of Fresh Air campaign’s ‘Tell a friend’-contest came to an end on 20 December 2010 midnight.
Over 10,000 people have participated in the Breath of Fresh Air campaign since its launch in April 2010, adopting turbines all over Europe or voting for those their friends adopted.
The top five countries for adoptions were Spain (491 turbines adopted), Italy (433), UK (427), France (420) and Germany (231). But wind energy enthusiasts adopted turbines everywhere in Europe: from the Faroe Islands to Turkey, from Norway to Portugal, from Poland to Switzerland. continue reading »
Representatives of the EU and the US agreed that a global climate change treaty is necessary and achievable at a debate Wednesday. However, while the EU saw achieving US legislation on the matter as crucial, the American line, surprisingly, was to dismiss the relevance of domestic climate change legislation.
Jos Delbeke, the European Commission’s Director General for Climate Change, expressed the EU’s disappointment at the lack of progress on the US legislation issue, particularly on the falling through of a proposed cap and trade scheme on carbon emissions.
“We would have liked to create a trans-Atlantic carbon market”, he said, adding that it was hard to see how the US would reach the 17% emission reduction target confirmed at the Cancun summit without a cap and trade system. continue reading »
The US wind power sector received two huge endorsements last week involving the first proposed offshore wind farm in the country and the nation’s favourite building.
Cape Wind, a 130 turbine project that was first proposed a decade ago, received its final permit from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on Friday, allowing it to begin work on the 468 MW wind farm in Nantucket Sound, Massachusetts.
In a press release, Cape Wind President Jim Gordon said the permit represents 10 years of work for the company and 17 federal and state agencies. continue reading »
Far from the bright lights of Rio de Janeiro, the north-easterly Brazilian states of Ceara and Rio Grande del Norte are blessed with some of the strongest and most consistent winds in the world.