One of the largest carport-shaped solar plants in Brazil was inaugurated this Monday (15) in Sorocaba, in the interior of São Paulo. With 3 MWp of installed power, the plant located in the Alto da Boa Vista neighborhood has the capacity to generate around 4,5 GWh per year.
According to Viridian Ecoenergia, the company responsible for designing the structure, this is the largest carport-style solar plant in operation in Brazil. The plant has 4.589 655 W bifacial photovoltaic modules from Canadian and 10 250 kW inverters from Sungrow. In addition, a Proauto stringbox and two 1500 V transformers were used.
R$21 million was invested in the construction of the project by Banco de Olhos de Sorocaba, the city's ophthalmological hospital. The plant is made up of 152 strings of 30 modules and one string with 29 panels.
“It is a major project that was designed with the most modern technology available in the sector. We had at least 50 professionals involved, from engineers to the construction team. The metal structure used is light and, at the same time, resistant, which reduces material costs and ensures safety. The photovoltaic modules follow international quality standards,” explains Luiz Cláudio Rosa, director of Viridian Ecoenergia.
According to the company, the parking lot has an area of 30 thousand square meters, of which 14 thousand square meters are covered by solar panels. The carport houses 789 spaces, of which, initially, 37 spaces will be prepared for electric vehicles.
Luiz explains that one of the differences in installing the plant was the structures, which were developed especially for this project. The panels were placed in a honeycomb-shaped metal structure, totaling 56 tons of steel used in the project.
According to him, the spaces have a difference: they are arranged in gaps of 12,5 meters between the concrete pillars, which makes parking much more comfortable for drivers. Furthermore, the carport covers part of the vehicle circulation lane, expanding the production area.
As a result, the plant has a significant gain of 30% more in land use, resulting in energy production and more savings. “The plant has potential savings of more than R$300 per month. Considering that photovoltaic modules have a durability of up to 30 years, the investment is very advantageous and can generate a return in savings of more than R$100 million over time”, says Luiz.
He also highlights the choice of bifacial modules and string inverters, which was motivated by the longevity and safety of the installation. “We were able to get five more years of performance from the plant because the modules were bifacial and suffered less degradation. And why did we choose to use string inverters? It was a question of safety. I didn’t want electronics on the street, even though the inverters are robust. So, we decided to concentrate all the intelligence and electronics in the primary cabin,” says Luiz.
The project also includes a two-story intelligence center with a wide view of the parking lot perimeter. The structure houses all the electronics of the plant, with an air-conditioned environment to ensure maximum efficiency of the inverters, equipment that converts the energy produced by the solar modules for use in electrical devices.
According to Viridian, this is a unique feature of the Sorocaba plant, since inverters are generally installed in the field, close to the panels and exposed to climate variations. “In our project, the solar panels are connected to the inverters by cables that reach this intelligence center underground. The inverters are kept at 25°C, ensuring maximum performance even during extremely high temperatures in the external area, which would result in a drop of up to 20% in energy production. With this structure that we created, this negative impact is eliminated,” says Luiz.
Another unique feature of the intelligence center is that it was designed to allow the plant to be expanded in area and in power generation capacity. “It is a plant in which we created the concept of parking for wheeled vehicles, but there is provision for receiving and storing electric flying vehicles, in addition to refueling them on site, as if it were a 'marina' for the vehicles of the future,” he said.
Recharging vertical take-off and landing electric aerial vehicles
The Sorocaba photovoltaic plant was designed with the future of transport in mind and, in addition to having charging points for electric vehicles, the structure has the capacity to supply vertical landing and take-off vehicles, a novelty in the sector that should come into use in the country in 2026.
The company responsible for developing eVTOL vehicles in Brazil is EVE Air Mobility, a spin-off from Embraer and based in the United States. The company has already been selling a large number of these vehicles and also encouraging and assisting stakeholders regarding infrastructure needs to support eVTOL operations.
During the execution of the Sorocaba plant project, the spaces were designed to be 12,5 m apart from each other, and as the wingspan of these aerial electric vehicles is 12 m, this makes it possible for the plant to also act in refueling this type of fuel. vehicle.
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Hello Hilton! Luiz Cláudio Rosa is here again, managing partner of Viridian ECOenergia, the company responsible for developing and implementing the project for the largest carport in Brazil, which is the subject of the article under discussion. We believe that the answers were presented to Mr. Marcos Rossi and Mr. Marcio Marins Corrêa. We apologize for the delay in responding, but we are at your disposal in case of any further clarifications. I just forgot to mention what Mr. Marcos said about what he believes to be a “delusion” regarding vertical takeoff and landing vehicles (e-VTOL), also known as flying cars. On the occasion of the centenary of the Father of Aviation, EMBRAER, one of the three largest aircraft manufacturers in the world, announced that its factory for these “flying cars” will be in Taubaté and that they are already working on expanding that plant that will begin delivering its vehicles in 2026. This was reported in the press, which published articles on open TV channels (Globo, SBT, Bandeirantes and Record) during the simultaneous inauguration of the plant that will be able, due to its unique and exclusive construction characteristics, to receive not only electric cars, but also e-VTOLs to be recharged under the structure we developed, which has wide spaces between the pillars and the capacity to power all the parking spaces. Experts in the USA that we spoke to said that what we did here fits perfectly to solve one of the problems they foresee for the expansion of this new mode of transport. I loved the Jetsons as a child and the last thing they designed there that we still don’t have is the flying car. The manufacturers promise it will be soon (some as early as 2024). The rest of the “delusions” anticipated in the 60s and 70s, such as Telemedicine, Videoconferencing on cell phones, Remote Work, Robots doing household chores, all already exist. 2026 is Embraer’s deadline and then we will know if this is for real or delusional.
Hello Marcio! My partner at VIRIDIAN, Paulo Cesar Costa, is an engineer who graduated in 1986, so he has been for 36 years. I have known him since 1988, when I came to the city and we worked together in product development engineering at SPLICE, a company here in the Sorocaba region. I say this because he is one of the most competent professionals I have ever worked with, and I have had many good people on my teams, people who graduated from the best universities in Brazil and the world. He has already answered technically why you believed it was impossible to put 30 modules per string. There are thirty (30) modules per string. They are 655W modules (i.e., higher voltage), which puts close to 1.300V on each pair of string wires. We know that this is not common, but it is possible that the inverter manufacturer visited the project and keeps a recording on their website on YouTube. See the link. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7gs94aZmdTE.O The project is very different from the traditional one and the plant's performance in these first six months of operation is superior to the predictions made by PVSyst. This is also because it is not common to use air-conditioned environments to install string inverters that can be installed in the field, together with the solar panels. Why did we do it this way? To eliminate “de-rating” (or performance degradation, in a literal translation) due to temperature. This happens with any electronic equipment and it is no different with inverters. Installing them in a place with a raised floor where the cables and cold air enter and closing them with tempered glass is not the best decision if your focus is only on COST, but if you calculate how much it means to avoid degradation that can reach 30% or 40% depending on the temperature during the hottest hours FOR ALL THE HOT DAYS THROUGHOUT THE THIRTY YEARS that is the expected useful life of the bifacial modules that we used in this project, you will see that the “payback” of the entire infrastructure is paid for in one or two months. My partner and I come from the research and development area and we believe that it is always possible to do things better, not necessarily more expensively. But even when they are more expensive, the important thing is to focus on the end result, on delivery, on the so-called LCOE. Here at Viridian, we are all very proud of what we develop, design, build and deliver to our customers. This is our most emblematic project, but our values are the same as those applied to all the installations we have done since 2011 when we started the company (even before resolution 482 of 2012). As I told Marcos in the previous comment, we believe that knowledge is only important when shared. We are available to answer any questions or, if you prefer, you can come visit us in Sorocaba for a coffee.
Good morning, Marcos Rossi! I am a partner at Viridian Ecoeneergia and was responsible for the development and implementation of this project. The project was made possible by the fact that Viridian is a company under the real profit tax regime and has an unlimited radar (import and export license), which allowed us to purchase imported materials (modules, inverters) directly from manufacturers in China and also directly from the local industry the other inputs needed for the project, such as medium voltage transformers, QGBTs, protections, CCTV systems, AC and DC cables, etc. We purchased all of this directly from manufacturers. If we had purchased from distributors to resell, as in most smaller projects, the “payback” would have been much less attractive to our client. Your calculation basis probably took into account purchasing from distributors or from the retail market. As for the economic justification, the two complement each other. The location is across from a hall that hosts large events (3 to 4 thousand people) and also has several residential developments in the surrounding area. These are obvious markets. But in addition to these, our client mentioned that he had received proposals from several dealerships to rent permanent parking spaces for vehicle storage. A very interesting secondary market for the 789 covered spaces. OF COURSE, it is also a plant that generates energy with very high performance because it uses top-of-the-line products, which is our work standard. The structure was designed and developed exclusively for this project because the carport solutions available on the market did not meet our requirements for comfort (spacing between pillars of 5 spaces – 12,5m) and safety (we require maximum wind load capacity). Finally, we invite you to visit us in Sorocaba and see the project. Many integrating companies visited the plant with us and we were happy to share knowledge and expand the technical capacity of the sector as a whole. Hugs!
Dear Marcio,
Perhaps because you work with small systems, you are not familiar with larger inverters, such as the Sungrow SG250HX, which work with a string voltage of 1500V, allowing strings with 30 modules. It is also reasonable to imagine that a project like this, in addition to technically qualified personnel, involved Sungrow itself and took due care to comply with all technical specifications.
Most of the articles are transcribed by an agent who is a journalist who, although she writes with journalistic prowess, is far from being an expert, which we even consider normal when it is for laypeople on the subject. But, as the Canal Solar writes for the majority of those who work in the segment, requiring that there be pertinent technical care. Marcos Rossi's observations deserve a response from someone who understands the subject. I hope so! I work with the use of carports to charge electric cars, of course, far from the vehicle's port.
Good morning,
I am a reader of Canal Solar and photovoltaic energy professional and would like to make a “constructive criticism” of the newspaper’s editorial.
We have been facing the worst period of DG for months and you haven't said anything about it. All the articles are about new plants of no how many megas, that the country surpassed the X generation mark, record this and that... but this is pure data manipulation. Why are you hiding the fact that the segment has stopped?
Talk about this, about the decline in sales, new projects and installations and the real reason for all this: Law 14300 and its author Deputy Lafayete.
We are in month 5 and soon there will be no more new plants for you to show here.
I agree with my colleague Marcos Rossi….”the structure cost more than the generation system”… this plant could cost much less,…..((The article failed to indicate who will consume the energy and what the business model is)) …perfect placement: I wonder as a solar energy company owner: Who will pay? Because according to my calculations, it cost at least 2.000.000 reais above the normal market price.
The article talks about 30 modules per string, that's impossible, that doesn't exist people... there are a lot of obscure things in the article, you need to research what it really is and how it was structured and how the plant above is designed.
Dear Marcio,
Perhaps because you work with small systems, you are not familiar with larger inverters, such as the Sungrow SG250HX, which work with a string voltage of 1500V, allowing strings with 30 modules. It is also reasonable to imagine that a project like this, in addition to technically qualified personnel, involved Sungrow itself and took due care to comply with all technical specifications.
Hi, good morning, I would like to congratulate Éricka for the article and say that I agree in part with the colleague's comments, but I believe that he was a little harsh in some of his criticisms and ended up making a mistake in calculating the number of modules versus strings, which in my opinion the numbers are correct in the article (152 x 30) + 29 = 4589. All constructive criticism enhances the work done by the professional who sometimes in the eagerness to do a good job ends up not paying attention to details that can be very important.
Thank you very much for the feedback 🙂
Congratulations on the report. Some observations are in order:
People don't know how to build low-cost plants. According to my calculations, the structure cost more than the generation system. The playback of this project is economically unfeasible, around 10 years including the capital cost, and the environmental cost is doubtful. This is not a power plant but a parking lot covered with signs. The parking justified the plant, but the plant did not justify the parking, in other words, they are different things that together cause a big loss. The article failed to indicate who will consume the energy and what the business model is. This story about landing vertically is delusional, both in time and in the reserved spaces.
In the article, terms in English should have boldface and explanatory parentheses. Furthermore, in the text where the word “under a structure” appears, I believe it would be “over a structure”. The number of modules does not match the string numbers.
Ericka, good afternoon. Congratulations on the report. You managed to summarize it well and with all the important details. And of course, congratulations to Viridian and BOS for the venture.