Brazil Needs State Incentives to Boost Solar Power in Region, MPX Says
MPX Energia SA (MPXE3), which is building South America’s first privately owned solar energy plant in Brazil, says the country needs more incentives to help the renewable energy technology take off as it has in neighboring nations.
MPX’s 1-megawatt pilot project is expected to be attached to Brazil’s national power grid within two weeks and to begin producing power by the end of May, Lucio Coelho, business manager at MPX said in a telephone interview.
MPX has received permission from regulators to expand the project’s capacity to 5 megawatts. Coelho said that’s not likely because electricity generated by solar panels cannot compete with other sources without subsidies.
“Today, photovoltaic technology is expensive,” Coelho said. “Solar needs an incentive program,” to be economically viable, he said.
That may include national auctions for power contracts, the system Brazil uses now for power generated from hydroelectric, wind, biomass and natural gas-fired plants, he said.
There is a state incentive program in Brazil’s northeastern state of Ceara, where MPX built the plant. Coelho said MPX will participate in an auction for subsidies from Fundo de Incentivo a Energia Solar, a Ceara state fund that remunerates developers for energy produced by photovoltaic projects.
MPX’s 10-million real ($6.4 million) project is in the city of Taua, 500 kilometers (311 miles) south of the equator where solar radiation is strong, the company said in an e-mail yesterday
Solar energy is becoming more common elsewhere in South America. Peru and Argentina have organized renewable energy auctions in which 10 photovoltaic projects received contracts to sell a total of 100 megawatts, according to government websites.
Latin America’s first government-owned solar project went into operation in March, a 1.2-megawatt facility in Argentina’s northwestern San Juan province. Comsa Emte SL, a Barcelona, Spain-based engineering company, built the $12 million plant.
To contact the reporter on this story: Stephan Nielsen in Sao Paulo at snielsen8@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Reed Landberg at landberg@bloomberg.net
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