The new wind turbines will form part of Renova’s major onshore wind expansion programme in Brazil, which began in November last year with the construction of the Alto Sertão II wind farm in the Bahia state. The project comprises 15 wind parks with a total installed capacity of 386 MW.

“Scale and efficiency are increasingly important factors in the wind power segment and they have created a new scenario, which is more complex and which requires internationally recognised partners such as GE,” said Luiz Freitas, legal and purchasing director at Renova Energia. “This contract is the result of the value generated by a joint Renova and GE team in the pursuit of the state of the art in wind power technology in Bahia.”

The partnership between the two companies began in Brazil’s first auction exclusively for wind energy in December 2009. “Renova built the largest wind farm in Brazil, and we are proud to take part in this project and to help boost wind power generation in Bahia,” said Jean-Claude Robert, leader of GE’s renewable energy business in Latin America.

To date, 300 GE wind turbines have been installed in Brazil. In the next two years another more than 600 units will be installed in the country, GE said. The Alto Sertão wind project, opened in July 2012, has 184 GE wind turbines producing a total of 294MW.