Andrade Gutierrez, one of the biggest infrastructure groups in Latin America, with operations in over 45 countries worldwide, and Alstom, global provider of equipment and solution to wind market, announce a joint venture (TEN – Torres Eólicas do Nordeste) to build a factory in Bahia State (Northeast of Brazil) to produce steel towers for wind turbines. The plant will receive investments of around 30 million euros and it will be composed 51% by Andrade Gutierrez and 49% by Alstom, with focus in the increasing of the local generation of energy by renewable sources.

The plant will produce 200 metallic towers per year in a built up area of around 22.000 m² and about 140.000 m² of total area. The prevision of inauguration is second semester of 2014. It will create around 250 direct and 600 indirect job positions that will be mostly composed by the local community.

The factory will be installed in Jacobina, a city with 80.000 habitants and 350 km far from Salvador, capital of the State. The city is close to the main current and potential wind projects in the region. Around 80% of the national wind farms are in the Northeast of the country. “It’s very important to the local customers to have suppliers close to the wind farms. It can reduce the logistical costs, delivery time and guarantee the security in transporting this large kind of equipment. It can bring even more efficiency in the process”, informs Marcos Costa, Country President of Alstom Brazil.

Noticing the importance of wind power for the Brazilian energy portfolio and its potential of growth, Andrade Gutierrez reorganized itself as an integrator for this industry. The company is able of managing the numerous interfaces of the different services required for building a wind farm, and now expands for the manufacturing of towers. In this way, the company intends to increase the quality assurance of the projects, assuring operation schedules and cost reliability.

It will be the third wind unit of Alstom in Latin America. The first one was inaugurated in 2011, in Camaçari, also in Bahia State, for the production of nacelles of wind turbines, and the second one in 2013 in Canoas, Rio Grande do Sul State, for the production of towers of wind turbines to be installed in the South of Brazil’s market and Latin American countries as Argentina, Chile and Uruguay. Alstom, who is also contributing significantly to develop the supply chain of components for towers, nacelles, hub and blades, is positioning itself as a long term player in the region.

Alstom has installed more than 2,600 turbines in over 200 wind farms around the world, supplying more than 5,000 MW of energy. Alstom designs and manufactures 1.67 to 6 megawatts wind onshore and offshore turbines, while providing solutions for all geographic and weather conditions.