A mighty wind.

What do you do when you run a power company and it's tough to meet demand? The answer could be blowing in the wind. Brazil's need for electricity will grow as high as 5% this year, in line with its robust economy. Power companies, who have been strained to meet that demand, are scrambling to tap resources in their oil-and-gas-rich neighbors like Venezuela or Bolivia to find energy sources. But power companies are also developing new ways to produce power, like wind.

For Brazil's largest power company, Eletrobras, windmills can produce electricity in places where it is hard to transmit power from traditional generators. Windmills don't generate near as much electricity as big power plants, but they can take care of smaller communities, especially those around the coast, where there is a lot of wind. They're environmentally friendly too.

Eletrobras is spending more than US$3.63 billion on alternative power sources that will generate 3,300 megawatts of power, with windmills generating one-third. Eletrobras will spend $1.78 billion on wind farms alone. "This is already underway. It should be in operation in 2006," says Silas Rondeau Cavalcante Silva, Eletrobras president.

Eletrobras controls 42% of Brazil's installed capacity. Aside from traditional thermoelectric and hydroelectric power production, Eletrobras burns agricultural waste to produce electricity and uses small generators, which helps meet demand. "We can relax due to the complementing sources of our energy," says Jose Drumond, the company's chief financial officer.

Eletrobras isn't the only one spreading the winds of change. Spanish power-producer Iberdrola will build a 50-megawatt windmill project in Rio do Fogo, in Rio Grande do Norte state. And Iberdrola isn't stopping with Brazil; it's building a 100-megawatt windmill farm in Oaxaca, Mexico. Those projects should also be up and running in 2006.