WIND ENERGY IN LATIN AMERICA: Latin American countries have the space and the powerful gusts needed to make wind energy a success. In Colombia's La Guajira Desert, a pilot farm of wind turbines has been in place since 2004. Other nearby sites are being considered for additional turbines.
Image: © LARRY GREENEMEIER
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On Colombia's La Guajira Peninsula, an arid stretch of land that forms the northernmost tip of South America jutting into the Caribbean Sea, life for the indigenous Wayúu people in many ways remains as it has for centuries. The Wayúu men fish each morning, returning home to their settlements (known as "rancherías") shortly after sunrise, before the sun heats the surrounding desert to 40 degrees Celsius. The Wayúu women weave woolen shoulder bags called "mochilas," which they sell in neighboring towns. Far from the major cities of Colombia's interior, potable water is scarce in La Guajira and electricity is a luxury.
La Guajira Desert—with its flocks of scrawny goats and ubiquitous stray dogs wandering among the cacti, trupillo and other scraggly vegetation—seems an unlikely location for the country's first utility-scale wind turbine field connected to the national grid and Latin America's first megawatt-size wind power installation. Still, Empresas Públicas de Medellín (EPM), one of the country's largest utilities, chose the Wayúu territory on which to build the Jepírachi Wind Project (pdf), which went live in April 2004. Jepírachi is a pilot project of 15 Nordex N60 1.3-megawatt turbines (each 60 meters tall) standing just a few kilometers from Puerto Bolívar on the Caribbean coast, transforming 10-meter-per-second gusts into a total of 19.5 megawatts of energy.
Although Jepírachi taps less than 0.4 percent of Colombia's 600 megawatts of wind energy potential, the project's output is significant because it has initiated a way to supplement the hydropower that supplies 70 percent of the country's electricity. Droughts have repeatedly created energy supply bottlenecks, forcing the government to look for alternatives.
Other wind projects are being considered, including a 200-megawatt wind farm in the peninsula's Ipapure region and a 20-megawatt site at Joutkai, which would be close enough to Jepírachi to share the same substation feeding Colombia's national power grid. The Joutkai site is expected to include 10 Vestas Wind Systems A/S V80 turbines, each 67 meters tall and generating two megawatts of energy.*
Revenue from the Joutkai project is expected to go to Wayúu ESP, a rural service utility set up to provide basic services (electricity and potable water) to the 90,000 or so Wayúu people living in the region. Only about five percent of the desert's inhabitants have access to these services today. Water for human and animal consumption all comes from wells and has high levels of salinity. Household energy comes mostly from wood or charcoal for cooking, kerosene for lighting, and dry cell batteries for small radios.
Despite the potential to modernize their lives, or perhaps because of it, many Wayúu are leery of the wind-energy projects. EPM built Jepírachi on land previously owned and occupied by the indigenous population, and Joutkai would follow suit. The incursion of large, multinational business endeavors in La Guajira Desert, including El Cerrajón coal mine, which opened in 1983, have displaced many Wayúu families and disrupted their traditional way of life.
Overall, Latin America's enormous wind energy potential remains largely untapped. Brazil and Mexico are hoping to change this and have been the most active in building out wind turbine infrastructures. Brazil in particular has studied Europe's successful model for harnessing the wind, says Ramón Fiestas, chairman of the Global Wind Energy Council's Latin American Committee. Brazil, which produces 800 megawatts of energy via wind turbines, plans to add another 1,800 megawatts of capacity over the next five years. Mexico, which generates 600 megawatts of wind energy, is looking to raise its total capacity to 2,500 megawatts by 2014, although much of this depends on improving the country's security situation and attracting investors, Fiestas adds.
European wind farms dwarf Latin American efforts in terms of production today, but this will change dramatically if Brazil, Colombia, Mexico and other countries in the region continue their wind energy efforts. Whereas Spain generates 20,000 megawatts from wind energy and plans to double that capacity by 2020, Brazil has a capacity to produce more than 140,000 megawatts of wind energy, Fiestas says.
View a slide show of the Jepírachi Wind Project and the Wayúu
*Clarification (7/06/10): Although Vestas says it had expressed interest early in the Joutkai project, Scientific American has learned that the company is no longer involved.
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7 Comments
Add CommentOur grand kids will think how silly we were; struggling with pollution from fossil fuels; drilling holes in the ground to find energy when all we had to do is look up. - http://www.facebook.com/greenisimo
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWell said. But I have found many questions about the futility of our current energy sources from my own kids.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHopefully, if their land is host to the turbines, they will reap some benefits. I want to support the Wayuu. With their new energy source, perhaps they sell their shoulder bags online? Anyone know?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI said the same thing when the Carter Admin created the EPA, with the idea that fossil fuels would be gone in a few years...BUT, here we are almost 4 DECADES later even more dependent on FOREIGN OIL. The truth is that in 40-50 years from now we will be in the same struggle. We need DOMESTIC OIL PRODUCTION to save our economy, combined with more efficiency of use. Alternatives are great ideas, but they will not, and do not replace our need of oil - regretably.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThese windmill generators are indeed "green". I live only a few miles from the "wind farm" on the northern tip of Prince Edward Island, Canada.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisB U T !! building them is definitely NOT a "green" undertaking. Unfortunately we do not have "green" factories for building this "green" equipment. All we have is our same old stuff that pollutes like hell. It seems that in order to "go green" we are going to have to get used to the idea that our output of pollution will INCREASE over the next 5 - 10 decades, if not longer.
And has anyone else notice that the "ideal" locations for "green energy" projects is ALWAYS on land used or owned by poor people? I wonder why it is that no property owned by wealthy is ever deemed suitable for such projects? Just askin'......
Sez Me...the reason these types of green projects(wind and solar) is on land that poor people live is that it use to be the least desirable place....a windy desert...they should reap the benefits of these kinds of changes...probably won't though...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWayne... rarely does a desert setting suit this type of energy production. Solar perhaps but the grit and dust kicked up by desert winds is extremely damaging to wind-mills. The best places for wind energy to be harnessed is often sea-shores.... y'know rich man's property. Does it happen? Nope. But let them locate a sea-shore area where the rich have not built summer cottages or beautiful million-dollar homes and where a few farmers are still scratchin' out a living, and "poof"!! windmills galore.....
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe entire Caribbean basin would be self sufficient with wind power if windmills could be located in the most suitable (for wind) areas. What'll you bet that never happens?!! You'll see windmills at the northern tip of Barbados though. Poor folks live there....