Brazil will hold its first tender for offshore wind energy by October, an environment ministry official announced Tuesday, saying the country has "unbelievable" potential in the emerging green energy source.

The federal government has launched a task force whose mission will be to finalize rules and regulations for companies interested in setting up offshore wind farms in Brazil, with the aim of holding the first tender by September or October, said the environment ministry's Marcelo Freire.

Brazil claims huge potential as an offshore wind energy producer, pointing to its enormous coastline, steady winds and relatively shallow waters.

Looking at "high-viability projects" alone, Brazil has around 700 gigawatts of capacity, the ministry says -- four times the country's entire energy production currently, and nearly 20 times all the offshore wind power produced worldwide today.

"Brazil has unbelievable potential to be a major exporter of green energy," Freire, the deputy secretary for climate and international relations, told AFP.

"At a time when Europe urgently needs to find alternative energy sources, Brazil has the potential to produce four times its current energy output with offshore wind," he said from Oslo, Norway, on the sidelines of a maritime conference where he announced the new initiative.

"We don't have the internal demand to consume all that. So we're looking at developing it as an industry that will export climate solutions."

Brazil could have its first offshore wind farms around five years after the tender, he said.

The tender plan, which follows on a January presidential decree opening Brazil to offshore wind production, has drawn interest from major international energy companies, the government says.

The tender would be timed to come just before October elections in Brazil. Far-right President Jair Bolsonaro currently trails leftist ex-president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva in the polls.

Bolsonaro has drawn international criticism for his environmental record, including a surge in destruction in the Amazon rainforest.

Freire, who also stopped in Denmark on a European tour aimed at promoting Brazil's environmental agenda, urged critics to keep an open mind.

"No matter what people may think of the current government, Brazil has decided to take the path of green growth, and there's no turning back," he said.

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