Brazilian photovoltaic energy reaches 10GW of installed capacity

This milestone for Brazilian photovoltaics comes after a 2021 in which 2 GW of solar energy have been added to the installed capacity of the American country

The Brazilian Solar Energy Association (ABSOLAR) has announced on its Twitter account that Brazilian photovoltaics has, as of August, 10 GW of installed capacity. This milestone, which in the words of the association itself is a “victory reflecting the effort and dedication of all those who fight and believe in a more sustainable future”, has been achieved thanks to an effort in photovoltaic installation over the last five months. The Latin American country managed to reach 9 GW of installed photovoltaic capacity in May and 8 GW during the month of March; which means that in just 5 months Brazil has added 2 GW of capacity to its photovoltaic generation grid.

According to media outlets such as PV Magazine, strong growth within the distributed generation photovoltaic segment (a segment that includes all installations that do not exceed 5 MW in size and that operate under the net metering regime), along with increasing large-scale bilateral power purchase agreements, is responsible for this significant advance in Brazilian photovoltaics.

The energy sector in Brazil is one of those with the highest proportion of renewable energy in the world, and this proportion rose from 42.4% in 2012 to 46.1% in 2019, positioning the sector as one of the least carbon-intensive in the world. The Brazilian renewable energy sector has traditionally been led by hydroelectric power (which accounted for 65% of the country’s domestic electricity supply in 2020), wind power (contributing 8.6%), and biomass (with 8.4%). Meanwhile, photovoltaic energy has accounted for 1% of this domestic supply.