I visited the Osório Wind Complex, in the city of Osório, Rio Grande do Sul state, Brazil. Photos about this city were added to the site’s images gallery.
The Osório Wind Complex
Was inaugurated in 2006, it is one of the biggest wind parks of Latin America. Has 149 wind turbines and 318 MW of installed power. Is managed by Enerfín Sociedad de Energia company from Elecnor group. This is the visitation center of wind park.
The turbines were built by the company Enercon, the generator`s energy goes to underground cables to a substation. Then go to transmission lines which supply all Rio Grande do Sul`s coast. Click in the button below to see how the aerogenerators work.
This video shows how the wind is with a speed between 55 and 60 km/h in the Complex’s area.
Turbine’s model
In this complex, the aerogenerators aren’t all equal, the most used model is the E70. Can generate until 2.3 MW of power.
This graphic shows the relation between generated power (red curve), power coefficient (black curve) and wind speed in a E70 wind turbine. This graphic shows that the E70 operates in nominal power when the wind speed is at least 15 m/s or 54 km/h.
The rotor has 71 meters in diameter. The foundation is circular, the tower has 98 meters height and it is made of concrete, the top is made of steel. This is the graphic of sound power level in relation to wind speed at 10 meters height.
Interaction with the environment
The caused environmental impact is the bird collision in the turbines. Exist 200 bird species in Osório Wind Complex area, the biggest risk of collision is between 50 and 100 meters. In 10 years of operation, was registered 200 bird collisions. Fortunately most of birds fly under 50 meters. The tower base is painted in green to represent the grass and the rest in white to represent the sky. The land is reused to raise cattle.
