Brazil issues first preliminary offshore wind license as more than 100 applications await review
In November 2023, in Riyadh, Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva summed up his country’s renewable energy ambition: within 10 years, Brazil would be known as the “Saudi Arabia of green energy.” Reporting from Rio Grande do Norte state illustrates how the social costs of that expansion have affected residents of some of Brazil’s poorest municipalities.
In Serra do Mel, beneath the power lines crossing a 50-hectare property belonging to local farmer Antonio de Souza, rows of cashew trees once stood — until a clean energy company ordered them cut down. De Souza told the Guardian he cannot plant crops in the affected area, drive a tractor through it in bad weather without risking an electric shock, or graze cattle near the cables. The contract specifies that infrastructure occupies one hectare (2.5 acres), he said, but four hectares have become wasteland on a 50-hectare plot that was the family’s livelihood.
The land de Souza farms was granted by the Brazilian state to needy farmers 50 years ago; his contract with Voltalia leases a portion of it to the company for another 50 years, according to the Guardian. When Voltalia arrived in his village after a year of drought, de Souza signed the company’s contract, as did almost everyone in the area. The promise was a monthly income of 3,000 to 5,000 reais (£430–£720), adjusted annually like a salary, without harming crops. A decade later, de Souza is leading a public civil lawsuit against the company. “If I’d known it would be like this – that I’d be prevented from planting and harvesting – I wouldn’t have signed that contract with them,” he told the newspaper, adding that he is not opposed to wind power.
The residents also want to regain the right to retire as farmers, the Guardian reported, because their status as “special insured persons” within the Brazilian social security system is at risk if they can no longer work their holdings — land now leased to a multinational for another 50 years.
In July 2024, at a packed meeting, hundreds of farmers voted to take legal action against the company. The civil class action, filed in May 2025 by three rural workers’ organisations with a favourable assessment from the public prosecutor’s office and the public defender’s office, seeks compensation for collective non-pecuniary damage for health problems or unfair contracts; the suspension of four windfarms still under construction; the relocation of existing turbines; and a corrective environmental impact assessment, with community participation.
The lawsuit also calls for a review of the contracts that would limit the transfer of rights to 50% of a farmer’s plot, restoring their status as “special insured persons” — a category within the Brazilian social security system created for rural workers on family-run farms. By law, if a farmer transfers up to 50%, they do not lose their insurance rights, provided they continue to work the land.
The payments are 1.55% of turnover, which will depend on where the energy is sold, and are hard to audit. Data from the National Electricity Agency (Aneel), compiled by the Lavoro Institute, shows that 17 of Serra do Mel’s power stations sell all of their electricity on the open market — most of it to Brazil’s south-east and central-west regions at prices negotiated directly with large consumers. The Guardian reported that electricity generated in Serra do Mel is sold cheaply to people the residents have never met, while the power that lights their homes costs twice as much.
Health data tells a parallel story. Figures from the Primary Healthcare Information System (Sisab), compiled in the Lavoro Institute’s report, show significant increases in anxiety and panic disorders, sleep disorders and hearing problems in Serra do Mel from 2022 onwards, when most of the municipality’s 36 windfarms came into operation. In Poço Branco — a municipality similar across all indicators except for the turbines — the trend moved in the opposite direction.
The case also highlights a regulatory gap. Brazil has no federal regulation stipulating a minimum distance between turbines and homes, while France requires equipment to be at least 500 metres from houses. Relvani de Brito, whose late father signed a 50-year lease with an energy firm for a solar and wind farm on the family’s land and who has since been barred from her own property, lives 250 metres from a turbine and described the noise. “During the day, you can barely hear it,” she said. “At night it’s worse because everything is quiet, and that’s when the racket starts.” She added: “I take medication for anxiety. I don’t sleep at night; I wake up at one o’clock, right on the dot.”
One day, Edvaldo Bessa, then 75, returned to his plot and received an electric shock from the steel cables of an uninsulated metering tower, the Guardian reported. Ten years after Brazil passed the 10GW wind power milestone in 2016, most streets in the municipality remain unpaved and families have no mains water.
Voltalia, when approached after the lawsuit was filed, said it had not been served, that it complied “strictly … with Brazilian legislation” and adopted “a collective, participatory and transparent contractual construction process” with a “commitment to the social development of the communities.” In a statement to the Guardian, Voltalia said it valued “sustainable development” and “dialogue with local communities … from local in-person assistance to digital channels such as the Ombudsman, as well as regular meetings, and social and environmental initiatives.” Regarding contracts, the company said it “developed the agreements in collaboration with local landowners and diligently addresses any matters concerning these agreements through the appropriate channels.” The company denied that the projects caused damage and said its windfarms were “managed in accordance with applicable regulatory, social, environmental, and health and safety requirements.”
Just over 18 miles (30km) from Serra do Mel, the wind blows towards Areia Branca beach, where Ibama issued Brazil’s first preliminary licence for an offshore wind energy project in June 2025. The project, located off the coast near a salt terminal, is being developed by the National Industrial Training Service (Senai-RN) to supply the port itself as a test site under a recently enacted 2025 law. At Ibama, more than 100 offshore windfarm licence applications are waiting to be processed.
“The way this process is conducted sets a precedent for all others to follow,” said Giovanna Ferreira, an activist monitoring the case on behalf of the Semi-Arid Region Human Rights Reference Centre (CRDH). When the CRDH visited the surrounding fishing communities, it found that the people most affected were unaware of what was about to happen. Senai claims the chosen area is in shallow waters far from traditional fishing grounds, but the fishers said the towers will be erected where they work.
Questions have been raised about whether further expansion is even necessary. The north-east of Brazil already produces more renewable energy than the grid can handle. In 2025, Brazil wasted 20.6% of the wind and solar energy it could have generated, with turbines shut down due to “curtailment” — when grid operators halt generation to prevent it exceeding demand, which could trigger blackouts. The loss is estimated at more than 6bn reais, which the sector association’s president, Elbia Gannoum, called “the worst crisis in Brazil’s wind energy industry.”
On Areia Branca beach, Luis, a fisher, told the newspaper he has heard about the turbines planned for the sea where he works. He is fearful, but still believes all will be well. “God and the ocean will always provide the fish we need,” he said. Local people are waiting for the wind to blow in their favour, the Guardian reported.