When one thinks of growth markets for wind investment, countries like Germany, China, Scotland, and the United States come to mind. But South America is one of the fastest-growing markets for the wind energy industry. And wind development in Brazil is growing at a phenomenal pace. It will provide the bulk of Latin America’s wind market in the coming years. It is estimated that in two years Brazil will be seeing yearly installations of over 1.5 GW as contracted projects are commissioned and come into service with connections to the grid. This is reported in a publication from Navigant Research “The Latin American Wind Market Assessment”. It also estimates that cumulative wind power in Brazil will reach 20.1 GW by 2022, which is more than all the other nations of Latin America put together.
Feng Zhao (pictured above) is the research director for Navigant Research. He says:
“Eight auction rounds since 2009 have awarded more than 8.5 GW of wind power contracts in Brazil, which secures a robust development cycle for at least the next 5 years. Brazil’s Minister of Energy believes that the country can reach 10 GW of wind power installations by 2017 – 8 years ahead of the original plan.”
While Brazil is definitely the market leader, Mexico is second. It is expected to have almost 9GW of installed capacity by 2022 according to the Navigant Research report. Mexico’s wind energy last year was only 2.5% of the country’s power generation total. It has some way to go to reach the target of 35% by 2024, just ten years away.
La Vuenta wind farm in Mexico is one of the largest (picture below)
Mexico is holding a wind power event later this month on 26 and 27 February in Mexico City, billed as “an event organized by the industry, for the industry”.
Mexico’s wind power is mostly concentrated in Oaxaca State where there are good wind speeds. Gamesa and Acciona dominate in the state. There are issues around a lack of meteorological stations to judge where the best wind is for new wind farms and loosely defined state boundaries, but these are not insurmountable problems and Mexico looks set to have a bumper decade in terms of wind and solar power.
