The 180-megawatt solar photovoltaic (PV) manufacturing facility in Valinhos, São Paulo — now the largest such facility in the whole of Brazil — was recently inaugurated in a service put on by Globo Brazil.
With the completion of the quite large PV manufacturing facility, the country’s domestic solar PV project market should get a boost. With more locally made solar PV panels available, development costs should go down.
The new manufacturing facility is expected to be able to produce roughly 2,000 solar PV panels a day once at full capacity. The new facility has directly resulted in the creation of roughly 240 new permanent jobs, and a fair number of indirectly created jobs are expected to result as well.
An attorney for Globo Brazil, Flávio Manuel Coelho, commented: “The Brazilian energy matrix, fuelled mainly by hydroelectric and thermoelectric plants, is disabled and has an extremely high cost. Inserting a solar source will allow Brazilians to have access to energy at lower costs and with increasing security.”
A point well taken. The country is in the midst of a great many cascading problems caused by the ongoing drought, including issues with hydroelectric generation levels.
In related news, the Brazilian Energy Research Agency recently announced that it has approved 649 new potential solar energy projects (altogether totaling 20.9 gigawatts of potential capacity) to compete in the country’s upcoming Second Energy Reserve Auction, which is currently set to be held on November 13, 2015.
