Keeping Brazil’s wind fleet turning

Brazil now has around 36GW¹ of installed wind capacity across more than 1,000 wind farms and 11,000 turbines. Much of it went up in a hurry. Auction-led growth in the north-east took the country from roughly 1GW in 2011 to 6GW by 2014, and that legacy fleet of 1.5-2 MW machines has now passed a decade of continuous operation.

New building has since slowed sharply. Brazil once installed 3-4 GW a year; but over the past three years, just over 1GW of new wind turbine capacity has been contracted each year. The growth now lies in looking after the turbines already in place.

Ageing faster than the calendar

Capacity factors in the north-east often exceed 50%, so turbines there work harder than almost anywhere. Blades also face intense UV, heat and coastal salt, while leading-edge erosion acts like sandpaper at high tip speeds, quietly draining energy production across hundreds of turbines. After a decade of operation, 2MW machines typically require increasingly intensive inspection and maintenance. Newer 4-6MW platforms, with blades beyond 75 metres, can also present maintenance challenges earlier in their operating lives.

“Brazil’s fleet isn’t just ageing by calendar years. It’s ageing at an accelerated pace,” said Felipe Ramalho, Head of LATAM at FairWind, who joined the business earlier this year to drive growth in the region.

The cost of waiting

In Brazil, a 5.5MW turbine operating at a 55% capacity factor can generate more than 72MW a day, so an unplanned stop could cost an owner R$16,000-20,000 (around US$3,500) a day in lost generation. A major blade failure is far worse. Long lead times on replacement blades, specialist heavy transport and 600-800 tonne cranes can keep a turbine offline for up to 90 days, with total financial impact potentially reaching R$5-7.5 million (approximately US$1-1.4 million) per event.

Geography adds to the bill. Many sites are remote and spread across vast distances, so crews must be self-sufficient and crane mobilisation is prohibitively expensive. Grouping work into regional campaigns keeps both cost and time under control.

That arithmetic is moving owners from fixing what breaks to inspection-led, predictive maintenance. Drones, thermal imaging and ultrasonic testing now make fleet-wide audits more affordable. Early erosion, cracks and leading-edge wear can then be repaired by rope-access teams during low-wind windows, at a fraction of the cost of a crane intervention.

“If I could change one thing about how Brazil’s wind sector manages its assets, it would be shifting from a reactive, emergency-driven approach reliant on scarce heavy cranes to a proactive one focused on up-tower preventive care and blade integrity,” said Felipe. “Owners would benefit from building rope-access campaigns, aerodynamic retrofits and early composite repairs into their core operational budgets, rather than treating blade maintenance as an unforeseen cost triggered by failure.”

Blades decide what comes next

Where grid capacity is capped or new civil works are too costly, many owners would rather extend a wind farm’s life by 5 to 10 years than repower it. With the original capital cost paid off, those extra years might be highly profitable. No turbine can be recertified for them without proof of blade health, though, and the same maintenance campaigns can add upgrades such as leading-edge protection and serrated trailing edges, lifting annual energy production on older turbines for little extra capital spend.

Scaling in Brazil

FairWind’s Latin American business was built on installation, strengthened by acquiring Wind1000’s regional operations. Globally, FairWind has deep blade maintenance expertise and it is now scaling that across the region as a core part of its growth plans. Major wind turbine OEMs have contracted FairWind for work across Latin America, most recently for blade repair, with services including:

• Installation and commissioning
• Preventive and corrective maintenance
• Blade services, from inspections and leading-edge protection to category 5 structural repairs.

Skilled rope-access and composite technicians are scarce across Brazil, with the shortage holding back the whole industry. FairWind already employs dozens of blade and maintenance technicians across Brazil, Peru, Mexico and Chile, with plans to expand significantly within the next three years.

“While competitors struggle to recruit from a limited local talent pool, FairWind is an attractive destination for top technicians because of our global scale, engineering support and international mobility,” says Felipe. “With OEMs increasingly reluctant to shoulder warranty risk on an ageing fleet, and owners taking closer control of their assets, there’s a clear runway for steady growth. Running our multi-country operations from Brazil keeps us close to our clients in Latin America. I truly believe in this market.”

FairWind will be exhibiting at Brazil Windpower (27-29 October). Come and meet our team at stand D-10 in the Danish Pavilion.

Not attending? You can find out more about FairWind’s operations in Brazil by contacting AM.Sales@fairwind.com or visit www.fairwind.com

¹ ABEEólica.