Solar energy grows by 40% in the year and surpasses mineral coal

The installed solar power capacity in Brazil grew by approximately 40% this year, according to a survey carried out by Solar Channel, based on data from ABSOLATE  (Brazilian Photovoltaic Solar Energy Association).

Last Monday (13), the Association released the consolidated numbers of the source in the country, with the update of the results obtained by the sector until September 1st.

According to the survey, Brazil reached the mark of 10.42 GW of power, with 6.61 GW of DG (distributed generation) and 3.81 GW of GC (centralized generation).

In the first balance of 2021, released on January 5, the country had 7.47 GW of solar power. In total, the source has already guaranteed the country investments in excess of R$ 50 billion, with R$ 15.9 billion this year alone.

Generation sources

The overwhelming growth of solar energy in the year also helped the source surpass the numbers of mineral coal and become the 6th largest source of centralized generation in Brazil, with 2.1% of the energy matrix.

At the beginning of the year, the percentage was 1.6%. The first place continues to be occupied by hydroelectric plants, with 58.9% of the total, which reinforces Brazil's dependence on water resources.

Today, as the country faces the worst drought in 91 years, electricity bills are higher and the risk of rationing increases every day.

As it is a clean and renewable source, solar energy has also prevented more than 11.3 million tons of carbon dioxide from being emitted into the atmosphere since 2012. Of this amount, 10.2 million were avoided in 2021 alone.

Solar distributed generation

In the DG segment, Minas Gerais is the state that generated the most installed solar energy power in the country, with 1.22 GW. Next, São Paulo (0.83 GW); Rio Grande do Sul (0.8 GW); Mato Grosso (0.5 GW) and Paraná (0.35 GW).

According to ABSOLAR, Brazil currently has more than 576,086 thousand photovoltaic systems connected to the grid, which brings savings and sustainability to more than 596 thousand consumer units.

In terms of number of systems, residential consumers are at the top of the list, with just over 435,522 thousand installations, around 71.8% of the total. Next come companies in the commerce and services sectors (17.3%), rural consumers (8.3%), industries (2.2%), public authorities (0.4%), public services (0.03%) and public lighting (0.01%).