Voltalia Sued Over Brazil Wind Farm Land, Health Harms — SkimNews
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- Voltalia faces a civil class action filed in May 2025 by three rural workers' organizations in Serra do Mel, with a favorable assessment from Brazil's public prosecutor and public defender's office.
- Brazil operates about 35GW of onshore wind capacity — the fifth-largest fleet globally — and nine in 10 turbines sit in the northeast, the region President Lula vowed to make the "Saudi Arabia of green energy."
- Serra do Mel residents say contracts signed during a year of drought promised 3,000–5,000 reais monthly but have prevented them from planting, harvesting, or grazing cattle near power lines, with payments set at 1.55% of turnover that are hard to audit.
- Primary healthcare data from Sisab shows significant rises in anxiety, panic disorders, sleep disorders, and hearing problems in Serra do Mel from 2022, when most of its 36 windfarms came online — the opposite trend from comparable turbine-free Poço Branco.
- Ibama in June 2025 issued Brazil's first preliminary offshore wind license off Areia Branca, near the country's main salt terminal, with more than 100 offshore applications pending and fishing communities saying they were not consulted.
- Brazil wasted 20.6% of its wind and solar energy in 2025 due to grid curtailment, a loss estimated at more than 6bn reais that the sector association's president called "the worst crisis in Brazil's wind energy industry."
Why it matters: Farmers in Serra do Mel lose usable land to wind infrastructure while the electricity generated there is sold cheaply to distant consumers — and locals themselves pay twice as much for their own power. With Brazil's offshore expansion now beginning and over 100 license applications pending, the precedent set on community consultation will shape whether the country's next wave of wind development repeats or avoids these harms.
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