Progreso, Yucatán — The first ship packed with blades, turbines and steel poles arrives Friday, signaling the beginning of what’s been discussed for years: Yucatán’s first wind energy park.
The wind farm will be in the coastal village of Dzilam de Bravo, 83 kilometers east of Progreso.
Transporting and assembling all the parts is complicated, said Benigno Villarreal del Río, the general director of developer Viva Energy.
Villarreal told Punto Medio said he has been in the Dzilam area with state and federal authorities establishing the logistics of hauling and installing 28 giant turbines, each 175 meters high and with blades 56 meters long.
Street closures will be scheduled to make way for the shipments, but Villarreal said they would attempt to disrupt local life as little as possible.
Wind energy is meant to bring Yucatán closer to self-sufficiency in its energy production. Today, the state depends on a hydroelectric plant in Chiapas.
But the project has its detractors who consider other environmental factors.
The Mexican Center for Environmental Rights questions the location of the farm.
Continuous noise from the blades will affect the residents Dzilam Bravo, and their movement could harm migratory birds. Digging holes for the posts’ bases could harm the underground water systems. And wetlands destruction could also affect the availability of food for flamingos, the organization has said.
The head of the Economic Development Secretariat (Sefoe), Ernesto Herrera Novelo, said his organization is working with indigenous communities concerned that construction work will endanger Mayan relics.
By the second half of next year, the project is projected to be in a position to generate energy and sell it to the Federal Electricity Commission.
Herrera Novelo said that eventually nine parks — four wind farms and five photovoltaic solar plants — will produce 35 percent of the energy consumed in the entity. One, in Ticul, will be the largest solar farm in Latin America.
The head of Sefoe said previously that the wind farm in Dzilam de Bravo, and another in San Ignacio, will create approximately 3,000 jobs in the state.
