Rio launches wind atlas

Brazil's Rio de Janeiro state energy, naval industry and oil secretary Wagner Victer launched Tuesday a wind atlas of the state, which the state government will use to attract wind power investment. The atlas will increase knowledge of the resource and lead to more wind plants being built in the state by detailing wind frequencies, direction and speed, Victer said in a statement. More power supplies and a greater diversification of generation sources in the state would in turn attract more industries to locate in the state, he added. France's SIIF, Spain's Gamesa and Brazilian-owned SeaWest do Brasil all provided data for the project, and the Sociedade Fluminense de Energia (SFE) company that owns thermoelectric plant Eletrobolt provided its management skills for the atlas. Federal power regulator Aneel gave three wind power concessions totaling 214.5MW capacity in Rio state from 1998 to 2002, none of which has started construction, according to Aneel information. In total, Rio de Janeiro has 5,561MW installed capacity, 2,770MW in construction and 3,036MW that has been licensed but not yet started construction.