Aneel

In terms of centralized generation, the country has more than 104.4 GW of awarded projects still under construction or in development, while in distributed generation, there was more than 30 GW as of February from projects with connection requests made by Jan. 1. In both segments, the availability of network connections remains a barrier in carrying out projects.

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.

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.

The National Institute of Clean Energies in Brazil has inaugurated a new secretariat that will focus on facilitating the growth of the green hydrogen sector.

The Brazilian president said the potential introduction of a grid fee for net metered solar systems will be eliminated thanks to an urgent ad-hoc decree expected to be approved soon by parliament. The proposed ‘solar tax’ would have affected all new PV installations with a generation capacity of no larger than 5 MW under Brazil’s net metering regime.

Electricity regulator ANEEL has proposed applying a fee for solar systems with up to 5 MW of generation capacity and reducing energy payments for participants in the nation’s net metering program.

Only 530 MW of the 2.97 GW of renewable energy generation capacity contracted in the procurement exercise went to solar. Eleven solar projects were successful and their final electricity prices were far below those offered by competing technologies.

Brazil’s biggest lender has launched three tenders to select solar facilities to supply it with power through leasing. The central bank expects to buy around 4 GWh of electricity per year for the Federal District and another 2 GWh in the states of Goiás and Pará.

The cumulative capacity of 5 MW-or-smaller solar systems has reached 958 MW in Brazil, according to consultancy Greener. Around a third of that capacity was installed in the first half of this year, with projects relying on half-cell and PERC modules making up the largest share.

Cracking the two-cent-mark as a global standard for PV appears within sight as projects in the U.S. and Brazil have been signed below that threshold. Just two years ago the industry celebrated sub-three-cent bids in the MENA region. Prices have come down so quickly, however, the new records are another third cheaper.