In a world more worried with environmental matters, Brazil has adopted an avant garde positioning as regards the settlement of goals for the reduction of greenhouse gases emission in order to contain global warming.
In such context, the option for the photovoltaic matrix seems an obvious alternative to Brazil, considering the climatic characteristics of the country, that is really privileged in terms of insulation. For comparison purposes, while Brazil receives an average daily irradiation between 1.500 and 2.400 kWh/m²/year, Germany, one of the countries with the highest installed potency of photovoltaic energy, receives between 900 and 1.250 kWh/m²/year.
Considering all such potential, the report that served as base for the definition of national goals for reduction of greenhouse gases emission at COP 21 – called “The Brazilian commitment in combating the climate changes: Production and Use of Energy”, prepared by EPE – sets forth that the country would have to include in its energetic matrix the production of 25GW of solar photovoltaic energy up to 2030, being 17 GW of centralized generation (geração centralizada) and 8.2 GW of distributed generation (geração distribuída).
Just to demonstrate how big this projection is, the participation of the solar photovoltaic source in the national energetic matrix would jump from the 0.01% registered in 2015 to more than 10% in 2030, a growth of one thousand times in a term of 15 years.
In such context both investors and Brazilian authorities were already seeing photovoltaic energy as an efficient and feasible alternative to more pollutant matrixes.
Important world players of the sector have already initiated their activities in the country. One of these foreign investors is, indeed, the owner of the biggest solar power plant currently under construction in Latin America, with a capacity of 292 MW.
An investment opportunity
In a general context, the structural modifications that have been put in place by the government in the economic sector have turned Brail into an attractive country to investments again, once it has been sensibly reducing the cost of capital and stimulating the industrial and production of goods sectors – consequently increasing the demand for electricity in the country.
Focusing specifically in the photovoltaic sector, several are the factors that indicate the investment opportunity in the country:
1) it would be necessary R$ 125 billion in investments up to 2030 to effectively reach the goal of 25GW established by the Brazilian Government.
That represents an important opportunity of business in the country not only for the companies that intend to explore the generation and distribution of photovoltaic energy, but also to the whole supply chain of the sector – going from companies that produce the photovoltaic panels until specialized service providers.
2) there is a new regulation of the sector (Normative Resolution 687/2015) for microgeneration and minigeneration distribution (microgeração e minigeração distribuída).
Microgeneration and minigeneration distribution consist of producing electricity from small powerhouses that use renewable sources of electric energy – the microgeneration distribution makes reference to an electric energy powerhouse with installed potency equal to or lower than 75 kilowatts (kW), while minigeneration distribution makes reference to electric energy powerhouses with installed potency superior to 75 kW and lower than or equal to 5 MW.
Considering that, houses, condominiums, commercial shops and even industries that are interested in may become small electricity powerhouses, delivering the exceeding of its production into the system and, as a result, obtaining a reduction in the due amount for using the electricity from the public system.
Such governmental initiative, added to the sensible decrease in the cost of solar panels in the last years (currently the payback is 6 years), attracts the interest of the people.
3) Apart from that, the Brazilian government itself has been signaling its stimulation to investment in the renewable energy sector (more specifically to photovoltaic sector) through measures such as the creation and expansion of credit lines and financing to projects in the sector, foment to human resources capacitation and formation to act in the micro and minigeneration distribution and incentive to the industry of components and equipment, putting in place fiscal stimulus.
Considering the conjuncture and the long term commitment undertaken by the Brazilian government concerning the photovoltaic sector, we believe that the current moment represents a great opportunity of investment and the team of Guarnera Advogados is widely capable of supporting the players of this commercial chain.