Tag Archives: energia solar fotovoltaica

Chile

Chile Solar PV

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Northern Chile is the region with the highest solar radiation in the world.

Photovoltaic technology was introduced in the 90s in the context of rural electrification programs.

In the area of large-scale power generation it has created in recent years a legal and economic framework that has strongly promoted its development.

The speed with which the country progressed has positioned itself as region leader, over Mexico and Brazil, in terms of growth.

Chile had 5 MW in 2012 and began 2013 with 11 MW of installed solar capacity.

The country led the region photovoltaic sector in 2014 with more than ¾ of the total. Only in the fourth quarter of that year Chile installed twice the total installed in Latin America throughout 2013.

In September 2015, 741 MW of photovoltaic energy stations were in operation, generating 131 GW/h and covering 2.3% of electricity production in the country.

A total of 2.11 GW in photovoltaic projects are under construction and green light was given for 9 other photovoltaic projects totaling 793 MW.

Together, the photovoltaic projects with environmental authorization totaled 10.33 GW by 2015.

However, the industry estimates that in 2015 only 1 MW small scale photovoltaic projects will be installed product of the entry into force of the distributed generation law.

The pessimistic diagnosis is because there are no conditions to give a true development, as with large-scale projects.

To achieve a massification of distributed photovoltaic systems is necessary to build trust with clear information; improve the categorization of authorized installers system; simplify the application, registration, change of meter and procurement process; equal rate of energy consumed with injected; facilitate access to financing.

Law 20.571 was enacted in March 2012. It was named “Net Billing” because the electricity consumed and injected are measured at different rates.

For a BT1 client means that the surplus will be assessed at 50% of the value at which buys electricity to the distribution company. This differs from the original law draft, which proposed a fee equivalent to the cost of the distribution, less 10% for administrative, billing and maintenance costs of distribution lines.

Distributed generation should really work with a law change towards a Netmetering system, following the trend of countries and states in which there have been important developments in distributed photovoltaic.

With the Net Billing current system the pay back can be more than 10 years for facilities located on RM, while with a Netmetering system could be considerably reduced.

Brasil

Brazil Solar Photovoltaic

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Photovoltaic solar energy in Brazil has taken important steps in self-sufficiency and net balance.

Distributed generation is entering the country more easily than large-scale facilities.

It is betting on a model of small and medium power generation plants for households and businesses consumption.

This is excellent news.

In 2012 standards were approved to reduce barriers for distributed generation and small power facilities for micro (up to 100 kW) and minigeneración (100 kW to 1 MW).

Since its publication in 2012 until March 2015, 534 systems (500 photovoltaic, 19 wind, 10 solar / wind hybrid, 4 biogas and 1 hydraulic) were installed.

In late 2015 the government launched the ProGD program that includes tax exemptions and special credit lines. It expects to reach 23.5 GW of installations, most photovoltaic, in 2030.

To achieve this goal, barriers to grid connection should be reduced, standards system power compensation should be harmonize with the terms of the offer, target audience should be increase and improvements in the application of the standard should be achieve.

The government has announced a ICMS (Imposto on Circulação of Mercadorias) reduction, levied 18% on imports and is one of the world highest.

In 2016 it also announced the exemption from Industrial Products Tax (IPI) for photovoltaic components that are not produced locally.

These taxes and fees added to the Inmetro (National Institute of Metrology, Standardization and Industrial Quality) Certification and Supplemental ISS rate, which municipalities retain on services not taxed by the ICMS (2% to 5%) represent a significant barrier to the development of photovoltaic in Brazil.

Industry sources indicate that import components to produce solar energy in Brazil now, means supporting a tax charge between 60% and 405%.

The opportunity for large scale photovoltaic solar energy has come up with the first time participation in the A-5 energy auction in December 2013 and the Pernambuco state auction same year.

Fontes I and II solar plants with 11 MW in Tacaratu, Pernambuco, and to Fontes dos Ventos wind farm of 80 MW, form a hybrid solar-wind complex of 91 MW; the first of its kind in the country.

Both projects have a 20 years solar power purchase agreement (PPA) and are the largest photovoltaic plant in operation in the country.

In the course of the 1st Reserve Energy Leilão 2015, promoted by the Brazilian Federal Government, 30 photovoltaic projects have been awarded 1,043 GWp. that will mobilize more than U$D 1,187 million investment.

The average final price of U$D 83,3271/MWh hired implies a discount of 13.5% over the initial price and a great success, reaching one of the lowest prices in the world.

The awarded projects are located in the states of Bahia, Piauí, Paraíba, Minas Gerais and Tocantins. Are 20 years contracts of energy sale, valid from 1 August 2017.

The last photovoltaic government plan sets a target for 2024 of 7 GW in large scale installations and 1.32 GW in distributed generation, doubling their previous plans for 2023.

The first solar modules factory in Brazil began operating in Valinhos in 2015 with an annual production capacity of 580,000 modules.

It aims to implement a new production line in 2016 to manufacture up to 1 million modules per year.

Bolivia

Solar Photovoltaic Bolivia

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Until the first half of the 90s, the installed capacity in Bolivia was 5.000 photovoltaic systems mainly for telecommunications and rural households’ electrification.

During the second half of the decade, more than 5.000 systems were installed in the department of Santa Cruz in a project promoted by CRE distributor, with funding from the Netherlands Kingdom Embassy.

In addition to this, projects financed by NRECA in the so called “Yungas” region of La Paz department and Energética in Cochabamba (Chimboata and Intikanchay projects) were also implemented.

Since the year 2000, more than 2.000 systems are being installed per year from projects such as those implemented by the Social Investment Fund (FIS) and the La Paz department Prefecture.

The number of installed systems to date exceeds 35.000.

According to data provided by Energética NGO, 83,4% of existing photovoltaic solar installations are for home use, 16,3% for social using (health centers, educational units, churches, seniors centers, unions) and 0,3% are for productive use (spinning centers, craft centers, pumping systems).

Most facilities are located in the departments of Cochabamba, Oruro and Potosi.

There are three important aspects that can favor the country’s photovoltaic development:

1- The manufacture of components by Bolivian companies. One company has included photovoltaic system batteries in its offer and another produces charge controllers, PL-type fluorescent lamps and voltage converters.

2- The training of human resources in this technology, which has been included within technical training centers’ curriculums, which allows to provide the labor needed to support a significant rate of implementations.

3- Installations’ quality. Bolivia was the first country in the region to have own regulations that guarantee quality. They were developed by the BOL / 97 / G31 project implemented by the Department of Electricity and Alternative Energies financed by UNDP / GEF and issued by the Bolivian Institute for Standards and Quality (IBNORCA).

Although photovoltaic technology in Bolivia has reached a certain maturity, it still has challenges ahead. Especially in the field of productive uses which should enable rural people to increase their income. Thus, it would fulfill a great purpose: to bring development to rural areas.

The second phase of the first solar power plant was recently inaugurated in the country (the 1st phase was delivered in September 2014) with a capacity of 5.1 MW and located in Villa Bush (Pando).

Cobija Photovoltaic Solar Plant will provide continuous power to the municipalities of Cobija, Porvenir, Filadelfia, Bella Flor and Puerto Rico.

The project’s total investment was U$D 11 million. The National Electricity Company (ENDE) invested U$D 4.98 million (47%), while the Danish Cooperation made a non-repayable contribution of U$D 6 million (53%).

Energy from Cobija Photovoltaic Solar Plant is expected to substitute the consumption of 1.9 million liters (0.43 million Gallons) of diesel per year.

The projected Oruro Department solar plant will have a capacity of 20 MW and its construction will involve the investment of U$D 45 million.

Argentina

Solar Photovoltaic Argentina

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The Argentine photovoltaic market is segmented into 3 types of applications:

1- Rural uses.

The demanded equipment are for electrification of rural housing posts (50W-80W); lighting systems (30W-100W); to feed water pumps that replace the traditional multi-blade mills (50W-400W).

2- Professional or business purposes.

Providing energy to telecommunications systems (100W – 400W), telemetry, markings, signage, highway emergency systems (20W – 50W), cathode protection and pipeline shutoff valves (over 20kW).

3- Institutional demand.

Includes social assistance programs, power regulating entities, organizations and state (provincial) energy companies. Equipment requests for lighting and electrification of schools, medical centers, police stations and residential users. Powers between 50W and 400W.

Until the year 1999 the demand for PV modules remained steady between 20% and 50% annual growth. From that year on, and especially after the devaluation in 2001, demand for these modules has suffered a sharp decline that has begun to reverse since 2004.

There is no domestic solar modules manufacture.

With approximately 1 to 2 MW of installed power per year, mainly in isolated applications, it seems that the only way for this market to grow is through the development of large-scale projects.

In conclusion: government authorities have not learned the lesson taught elsewhere.

Efforts should be focused on distributed systems’ installation and integration of PV in urban environments, developing residential, secondary and tertiary sectors.

The future of a solid and consistent solar PV sector clearly requires the development of:

1) A limited number of grid connected big projects.

2) Encouraging installations on residential and businesses roofs on the basis of a net metering or feed-in payment.

Currently there is no feed-in payment for solar residential electricity.

There are purchasing agreements granted in the solar electricity program GENREN of US$ 572 / MWh (Three times the average of the PPA agreements awarded in the rest of Latin America).

In the city of San Juan, a facility that used a combination of fixed and followers, polycrystalline, mono-crystalline and amorphous silicon cells structures was inaugurated in 2012.

It has 1.2 MW and has become the first solar photovoltaic plant connected to the national network of integrated power system in South America.

At domestic levels, investment in a solar PV system is recovered in about 5 years compared to a fuel generator.

Compared to the electricity network, the figures are radically different.

The electricity network has an approximate price of US$ 47 per MWh against US$ 142 solar MWh.

In other words, solar electricity costs triple the network. In this scenario, the solar investment would be recovered in 98 years (more than 3 times the equipment’s life).

The paradox is that according to an analysis by the Environmental Protection Agency of the City of Buenos Aires (APRA) each MWh that adds to the country, provided by thermal power plants, costs US$ 344.

Therefore, thermal power plants (the majority in country’s energy matrix) are selling to end users 7 times cheaper than the actual cost of producing and transporting electricity.

In addition to this, about US $ 15,000 million annually are used to import fuels.

In short, lack of common sense and any planing.

If the electricity price of other cities within the region (Santiago, Montevideo and San Pablo) was paid in Buenos Aires, the solar system investment would be recovered in 12 years.

From 2016, we will see if political change in the country will lead to the end of energy crisis and sustainable development of solar photovoltaic energy.

Solar Photovoltaic Energy

Solar PV Latin America

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Latin America generates about 7% of the world’s electricity and non-traditional sources account only for 6% of the energy mix.

It is expected that by 2050 over 20% of the electricity generated in the region will come from non-hydro renewables.

May the contribution of photovoltaics be significant?

This technology has great potential in the region, but is still marginalized to the background among the countries’ energy choices and many times what is done about it is just to “stand” and very little is accomplished.

Compared to the rest of the world, the rate of solar photovoltaic energy implementation in Latin America is very low.

Annually the installation of about 100 GW of solar photovoltaic energy is expected worldwide and usually only 1% corresponds to this region.

However, the fact of not having been one of the pioneer regions where the development of this technology began will allow learning from other regions or countries mistakes.

We must distinguish between solar industrial development (manufacturing of modules and other components) and solar energy (solar electricity).

Solar industrial development in the region has difficulties with the sharp drop in solar modules’ prices.

In contrast, solar electricity production is favored by the fall in modules prices and makes solar photovoltaic energy more competitive.

The average cost of 1 W of installed solar PV has dramatically dropped in recent years and most projections indicate that this trend will continue. The underlying costs associated with solar photovoltaic energy will also continue to decline.

PV installed capacity of Latin American countries has always been oriented to isolated applications to meet the needs of rural populations without access to electricity network.

Only after 2014 solar photovoltaic projects began to attract capital.

Latin America has 51 solar photovoltaic plants in operation and 625 MW of installed PV in 2014, compared to 133 MW in 2013. They have announced 23 GW projects, 5,2 GW in contracts, 1,1 GW under construction and 722 MW in operation.

From GTM Research consultancy recent studies show that the installed capacity in MW has increased 370% in 2014 and is expected to rise 237% in 2015.

This figure could be revised downwards following the price collapse that has rocked the oil industry and the commodity sector in recent months.

Today, in Latin American countries with good levels of radiation and without large subsidies in the energy market, the model of solar PV is self-sustaining.

In some cities in Mexico, Brazil, Chile and Peru, the solar PV cost is situated very close to grid parity.

Countries like Costa Rica, Guatemala, Mexico, Panama, Dominican Republic and Uruguay already have national laws and regulations in place for connecting photovoltaic generators under the net metering system.

The most suitable places to locate large plants are the deserts near the Pacific coast and northeastern Brazil.

Over the next 20 years it is expected that the investment in solar photovoltaic energy per year will reach about U$S 100.000 million worldwide.

A forecasted development of 3,5 GW is estimated in Latin America by 2016.

Could this be possible?

To know it, we are going to do a country-by-country analysis because there are very different realities.