Central & South America

The company opened an inverter factory in the Manaus Free Trade Zone with a capacity of 1.8 GW, or 300,000 units per year. In the second phase, it plans to bring in the production of hybrid inverters and lithium batteries as well as chargers for electric vehicles and motors for electric boats. The company will have distribution centers in Curitiba and Fortaleza to ensure rapid delivery of equipment to the domestic market, with a minimum warranty of 10 years.

According to the country’s Mining and Energy Planning Unit, of all the projects currently operating in Colombia that it is aware of, 10,672 MW are photovoltaic, followed by 8,452 MW of wind, 1,973.9 MW hydraulic, 672 MW thermal and 42.7 MW biomass.

The PFV Las Salinas stages 1, 2 and 3, which totals 205 MW, will operate jointly with the 112 MW Sierra Gorda Este wind farm and will be the largest industrial-scale hybrid renewable generation center in the country, according to Enel.

A new U.S. Department of Energy loan guarantee will help finance 200 MW of solar and 285 MW of grid-scale storage on the island.

Panama has canceled an auction it announced in February for 500 MW of renewable energy capacity. It would have been the country’s first renewable energy tender in a decade and the first in Central America to include battery storage systems.

The rapid growth of renewable energy in Brazil has not been matched by transmission and distribution infrastructure. Connection restrictions for both “distributed-” and centralized-generation sites are leading companies to adopt new strategies to maintain expansion, reports pv magazine Brasil’s Livia Neves.

In a new weekly update for pv magazine, Solcast, a DNV company, reports that Rio de Janeiro recorded the sunniest June in over 18 years, with solar irradiance 15% above the long-term average. This was part of a band of higher than average sunshine extending through Bolivia, Paraguay, and parts of Brazil. Conversely, southern Argentina saw an irradiance drop of up to 30% below the long-term average as it experienced its cloudiest June in the same period.

Peru’s Ministry of Energy and Mines (MINEM) says the country installed 115.5 MW of new solar capacity in the first half of 2024, bringing the nation’s total installed PV capacity to around 400 MW.

Despite global overcapacity, several factors may contribute to a slight increase in solar panel prices in Brazil, with shipping costs and quotas for fiscal exemptions on imported PV modules playing a key role.

A review of indoor PV cell technologies by an international research team delves into recent progress, characterization, and design strategies used to develop highly efficient cells. The study presents 250 commercial and laboratory devices, as well as applications and performance reporting.