Brazil

Brazilian and US researchers have evaluated the water evaporation rate of a floating PV system on a Brazilian reservoir. They said that the 130 kW installation reduced evaporation by 60%, and claimed that a 5 MW system could save enough water for 196 people per year.

The Brazilian Association of Photovoltaic Solar Energy (ABSolar) says the country has reached 17 GW of installed solar capacity for PV projects below 5 MW in size. Over the past three months, connection requests for distributed-generation PV projects have hit 32 GW.

Rodrigo Lopes Sauaia, the CEO of the Brazilian Association of Photovoltaic Solar Energy (ABSolar), speaks to pv magazine about why Brazil is poised to install a record-breaking 10.1 GW of new capacity in 2023. He says both distributed-generation and utility-scale PV projects will contribute to “the best year of solar so far.”

Brazil’s newly elected government, under Luiz Inácio “Lula” da Silva, will face energy-transition and decentralization issues during critically important years in the fight to curb climate change. Livia Neves reports from Rio de Janeiro.

Brazilian scientists have assessed variations in temperature coefficients in solar modules to determine whether there is a relationship between the dependence of these coefficients and irradiance. They claim their work could be used to improve PV module performance modeling.

Grid operator ISA CTEEP has started commercially operating a large-scale battery energy storage system (BESS) at the Registro substation in the Brazilian state of Sao Paulo. The 30 MW/60 MWh BESS is expected to provide backup power to the grid during hours of peak demand in summer.

Brazil has deployed 7 GW of utility-scale solar and 14.98 GW of distributed-generation PV projects below 5 MW in size to date.

Brazil’s Omega Energia’s new 4.6 GW solar project is set to become the world’s largest PV installation upon completion. However, the Brazilian state of Ceará has postponed plans to grant it an environmental license until Dec. 1.

The Brazilian Association of Distributed Generation (ABGD) has announced that the sector reached the 14 GW milestone. Installed capacity grew from 13 GW to 14 GW in just over a month, “the fastest growth ever recorded,” the association claims.

Brazil’s energy agency has awarded 23.5 MW of solar capacity in its latest auction, at a price of BRL 0.176 ($0.033)/kWh. The auction ceiling price was BRL 0.28 ($0.0529)/kWh.