Iberdrola to invest 5.3 billion euros in renewables in Brazil

The chairman of Iberdrola, Ignacio Galán, made a commitment yesterday to Brazil's president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, to invest 30 billion reais - some 5.3 billion euros - over the next three years in the country, to continue developing new renewable and grid projects, as well as to make the most of the opportunities offered by technologies such as offshore wind or green hydrogen.

"Iberdrola will be a faithful ally in the country's energy transition," Galán told Lula during a joint visit to the Neoenergia Renewable Energy Complex.

630 million euros

Iberdrola's subsidiary in Brazil has started up wind and solar energy generation in the country for the first time, thanks to the Chafariz wind farm and the Luzia photovoltaic plant. "Hybridization allows more efficient management of the two renewable sources, a reduction in costs and better use of all the potential, including the transmission system", explained Iberdrola.

The development of the project has involved an investment of 630 million euros, will enable the supply of clean energy to 1.3 million homes and will avoid the emission of more than 100,000 tons of carbon dioxide per year.

3,600 direct and indirect jobs

The facility consists of 15 wind farms with a total of 136 wind turbines (with an installed capacity of 471.2 MW) and two Neoenergia Luzia solar plants with 228,000 panels and an installed capacity of 149.2 MW.

The construction of this energy complex has involved the participation of 180 people who received more than 680 hours of classes to train as masons, carpenters and blacksmiths. Another 150 people were also trained to assemble metal structures for solar panels. Of the more than 3,600 direct and indirect jobs created, 40% were filled by local workers, according to data provided by the company.

20 years in Brazil

"We started in Brazil 20 years ago and today we are more than one hundred companies operating in all segments of the Brazilian electricity sector and serving almost 40 million people with a total of 16,000 employees. Iberdrola and Neoenergia will continue to be loyal allies of Brazil," Galán recalled.

The Spanish group's subsidiary has been operating in Brazil since 1997. Its businesses are divided into the areas of generation, transmission, distribution and commercialization. Its distributors serve more than 16 million customers, equivalent to a population of more than 37 million people.

Neoenergia has 5.1 gigawatts of installed generation capacity, 90% of which is renewable, and is implementing another 200 MW with the construction of new wind farms. In the network business, it has 2,500 km of lines in operation and 6,100 km under construction.