Enel Green Power wins 3 wind farm projects in Brazil

Enel Green Power Chairman Francesco Starace speaks during a Reuters interview at the Enel office in central Rome September 8, 2009.

MILAN (Reuters) - Italy's Enel Green Power (EGP) has won power supply contracts for three wind projects with a total capacity of 193 megawatts in Brazil where it aims to expand in the growing green energy market, EGP said on Friday.

The three wind farms are expected to start commercial operations by 2014 and generate 770 gigawatt-hours of power a year, enough to meet demand of 500,000 households in Brazil where power demand is estimated to grow at about 5 percent a year, EGP said in a statement.

The projects will add to 90 MW of wind projects that EGP won in Brazil last year and to 93 MW of hydro capacity already in operation there, said EGP which is controlled by Italy's biggest utility Enel.

EGP's capacity growth is keenly watched by investors. It has driven a 35 percent jump in EGP's core earnings in the first half of 2011.

Under the terms of the Brazilian New Energy Auction, EGP has been granted the right to sell defined energy volumes from its wind farms to a pool of regulated distribution companies with 20 years power supply contracts.

Additional energy volumes will be sold to the liberalized market through long-term pre-established commitments.

Total investment for the three projects is estimated at about 330 million euros ($464.8 million).

"We see excellent conditions for a sustainable and large development of renewables in Brazil," EGP's Chief Executive and General Manager Francesco Starace said in the statement.

"In this context, EGP will be able to play an important role, making the most of its technologies while leveraging on the strong synergies it has with the Endesa group, operating on the Brazilian power market," he said referring to Enel's Spanish unit.

EGP's global installed capacity exceeds 6,100 MW, with more than 620 plants in operation around the world generating power from wind, sun, water, the earth's heat and biomass.

($1=.7099 Euro)

(Reporting by Svetlana Kovalyova; Editing by Alison Birrane)