A drive for cleaner energy is revving up in Brazil. In the Amazon, an ambitious project aimed at replacing power plants running on heavy fuel-oil with new, cleaner-burning natural gas engines from GE’s ecomagination line of more energy efficient technologies is underway. While near the eastern coast, two new power projects will mark the debut of GE’s wind turbines in the country.
Going with the flow: The natural gas will be delivered by a new pipeline connecting the oil and gas fields of Urucu in the north with Manaus, northern Brazil’s second-largest city, pictured above. The goal of the Amazon project is to create a more reliable energy source for the country’s northern regions while at the same time helping Brazil to reach its goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by between 36.1 and 38.9 percent from projected amounts in 2020.
Breitener Energética will install 46 of GE’s low-emission Jenbacher gas engine generator sets — 23 units at each plant site. The power company cited GE’s expanded gas engine manufacturing center in Jenbach, Austria, for having the engine production capacity needed to meet the power company’s delivery and construction schedules — which call for the units to arrive in April.
Meanwhile, in the Brazilian states of Rio Grande do Norte and Bahia, both near the country’s northeastern coast, commitments have just been made to use GE’s wind turbines — marking the ecomagination technology’s debut in the country.
Big fans of Brazil: Both energy developers, DESA and Renova, chose GE’s 1.5 megawatt class of wind turbines – of which more than 13,500 are installed globally. They’re expected to be in commercial operation by July of 2012. “This is Renova’s first move into the wind business and we were concerned about reliability and efficiency in our choice of technology,” said Vasco Barcellos, CEO of Renova Energia. “GE understood our needs and brought its technical teams to work close with us in the final steps of development of our projects.” Added Lindolfo Zimmer, CEO of DESA, “Wind farms are relatively new to the Brazilian energy market. We built a partnership with GE focused on getting the best technology matched with our technical needs.”
Brazil has relied heavily on hydropower for its electricity supply. But the country has vast, untapped wind resources, thanks in large part to strong wind conditions along the country’s 4,600-mile coastline.
Meanwhile, further north, Mexico City is also jumping into cleaner energy in a big way by using GE’s gas turbine technology, which is also part of the ecomagination portfolio, to convert a conventional power plant into the first large-scale cogeneration plant in Mexico. Cogeneration is the simultaneous production of electricity and heat using a single fuel such as natural gas. The process harnesses heat that would otherwise be wasted – and it also results in what’s known as higher thermal efficiency, which in turn allows carbon dioxide emissions to be substantially reduced.
