While Brazil is making progress in customer-side, “behind-the-meter” and off-grid battery solutions – with more than 700 MWh – it still lacks guidelines for a planned gigawatt-scale national auction. Markus Vlasits, president of the Brazilian Association of Energy Storage Solutions (ABSAE), tells pv magazine about the nation’s utility-scale battery bottleneck.

Brazil’s solar imports fell 33% to $722 million in the first four months of 2025 amid project delays and oversupply, as new trade routes began cutting costs and freight times to the country’s North and Northeast regions.

Floating solar could add 17 GW to 24 GW of capacity in Brazil, depending on pricing scenarios, while also reducing water evaporation by up to 50% and conserving water for hydroelectric generation, according to a new study.

Brazil’s electricity mix was 88% renewable in 2024, with wind and solar supplying about 24% of total demand, according to new data from state-owned energy agency Empresa de Pesquisa Energetica (EPE).

A national procurement round for energy storage systems, planned in the second half of the year, is at risk of lengthy delay just as the grid operator is being forced to curtail large volumes of excess clean electricity.

The proposed reform of the electricity sector includes the creation of the supplier of last resort, possible flexibility for consumers without contracts and the end of TUST and TUSD discounts for renewable power plants. The plan also imposes a minimum load of 30 MW for self-production by equalization and determines changes in the cost sharing of the sector.

The additions represent marginal growth compared to 2024, according to SolarPower Europe. Last year, the country ranked second in new installations, behind only India (30.7 GW), the United States (50 GW) and China (329 GW). In terms of cumulative capacity through December 2024, the country ranked sixth, with 66.7 GW.

The volume of imported modules was 18% lower than in 2023. After growth in 2024 compared to 2023, installations of large solar plants are expected to face a decline in 2025, with the combination of energy prices close to the floor and worsening curtailment potentially postponing new investments.

Brazil has installed 37.4 GW of distributed solar and 17.6 GW of large-scale PV capacity to date.

The industry will reach the 1 TWh demand milestone in 2024, with China producing more than three-quarters of the batteries sold globally. The concentration of the production chain in the country has led to a fall in costs and a possible technological shift with the focus on LFP batteries. Cooperation between countries can be strategic to diversify the battery production chain and create sustained demand, assesses the International Energy Agency.