Over recent years, Brazil has invested heavily in numerous high profile renewable energy projects, as it seeks to find new ways of meeting increasing energy demand. As a direct result the Brazilian government has put in place a competitive auction tendering process that has helped to better channel and foster this rapid sector growth while meeting the political and investment requirements of the country.
Brazil had its first wind energy auction in December 2009. Today, Brazil has over 5GW of wind energy installed capacity. Solar energy in Brazil has yet to be able to succeed in the renewable energy market due to its inability to compete with other energy sources on price. Recent crises that reduced investments in Europe and the US combined with Brazil’s record energy prices have started attracting foreign solar investment to the region. Today, Brazil will have the Leilão ER 2014 auction, its first auction where solar energy will compete separately from other energy sources at a more competitive price.
Vaisala has successfully secured entry into the Brazilian auction and tendering process, having worked closely with EPE (Empresa de Pesquisa Energética), a company linked with the Brazilian Ministry of Mines and Energy that provides study and research to support the planning of the domestic energy market. Following Vaisala’s approval as a project certification provider for the auction process, it has subsequently won its first domestic solar power contract, working with Sky Solar on Tocantins, a 30MW initiative that shares its name with the state it is being developed in. Using extensive satellite data to assess the project’s resource, the certification and assessment was completed within just two weeks – in order to meet the developer’s requirements.
The project is commercially significant, as it marks Vaisala’s official entry into the Brazilian renewable energy auction market. Vaisala has also gained recognition as a valuable certification provider of investment-grade assessments that are designed to attract financial backing from the Brazilian National Development Bank (BNDES). Developing global financial interest in Brazilian renewable energy is very important if the country is to meet its future energy requirements.
“There’s no doubt that Brazil has the resources and ambitions to be very successful in renewable energy,” said Nicholas Wilson, Energy Regional Segment Manager, Americas at Vaisala. “However, with competition for funding at an all time high, the challenge for many ambitious developers is to ensure that consented projects are properly valued and assessed from the very start, a key part of which is quickly gaining an informed and validated picture of the potential project’s true performance capability. For many developers, this means looking beyond a single year of meteorological data and capitalizing on the strength of much more established and proven historical data sets.”
“For too long, project owners have been forced to make early-stage project development decisions that materially impact the long-term operational and financial performance of a project, without having good quality data at hand,” added José Bascones, Project Manager at Sky Solar. “Since our inception we’ve always understood the value of having reliable data and the means to accurately decipher and interpret it. We’ve also always taken great strides to ensure that we have the best possible overview of the financial performance and profitability of our projects. By working directly with Vaisala, we’ve capitalized on their sector understanding and experience and look forward to working with them in the future, as our project pipeline continues to develop.”