Brazil

Enel will invest around 1,400 million BRL ($390 million) in the construction of the São Gonçalo solar plant, located in the state of Piauí. The 475 MW project is currently the largest PV plant under construction in South America.

The state’s Secretary of Resources intends now to conduct feasibility studies for a series of projects of up to 5 MW, which will provide local state-owned utilities Water Resources Management Company and the Water and Sewage Company with electricity.

Selected projects, which have a combined capacity of 338 MW, are scheduled to begin delivering power in January 2022 under a 20-year PPA.

The new funds will come from Brazilian development bank, BNDES and will help small businesses, individuals and communities to implement commercial solar PV and wind power projects. Financing will be granted to projects using equipment that complies with local content requirements.

At pv magazine’s first Latin American Quality Roundtable, held at Intersolar South America in Sao Paulo, we were joined by international players, like JinkoSolar and DuPont, as well as public and private Latin American entities, all of which are striving to bring more quality to the solar PV supply chain, from the U.S.-Mexico border to Tierra del Fuego.

The company’s renewable energy unit EDPR will sell power to an unnamed client from a solar plant to be located in Ferreira Barreto, in the Brazilian state of Sao Paulo. The Portuguese utility and wind power specialist began making investments in solar in recent times.

At pv magazine‘s first quality roundtable in Latin America – at Intersolar South America in Sao Paulo – we were joined by international players such as JinkoSolar and DuPont, as well as public and private Latin American entities striving to bring more quality to the PV supply chain from the US-Mexico border to Tierra del Fuego.

In an interview with pv magazine at this year’s Intersolar SA in Sao Paulo, Rodrigo Sauaia, president of Brazilian solar association, ABSSOLAR discussed the current issues and opportunities in Brazil’s PV market. The association is calling on the Brazilian Government to contract up to 2 GW of solar power in future auctions, and to maintain current rules for DG. The private PPA segment, meanwhile, which only a year ago appeared unviable, has begun to show positive results. All in all, solar in Brazil is growing, despite the hurdles created by a difficult political and economical environment.

The sixth edition of Intersolar South America in Sao Paulo has showed unequivocally that both international and Brazilian players firmly believe in the big potential of the Brazilian solar market, despite the current political uncertainty and usual economic challenges. Overall, the event was larger and of a higher quality than last year, while in the absence of future dates for new large-scale solar auctions, and stable conditions for private PPAs, DG is emerging as the market’s main driver.

Brazilian conglomerate Grupo Rio Alto is planning to deploy another 210 MW of solar plants in the state of Paraiba, while Korean company KSB is discussing a $1.5 billion solar project with the authorities of Campo Grande, in the state of Mato Grosso do Sul.