Brazil’s Minas Gerais state to hold PV auction in Nov - report

Sep 18, 2014 - Brazil’s Minas Gerais state plans to launch in November a tender for the construction of solar photovoltaic (PV) facilities, Bloomberg said yesterday, citing a government official.

The state is currently working to finalise the rules for the auction, aimed at supporting local solar panel manufacturing, Guilherme Augusto Duarte de Faria, superintendent of the state’s Economic Development Secretary, told the news agency by phone.

Bids as high as BRL 260 (USD 110/EUR 85.7) per MWh will be accepted in the tender and the winners will be awarded 15-year contracts. According to Faria, five project developers are interested in the auction and three PV panel makers are holding advanced discussions to build a plant in the state. The output of the solar power stations will be sold to Brazilian utility Cia Energetica de Minas Gerais.

Minas Gerais will be the second state to launch a solar auction after Pernambuco, in northeastern Brazil. On a national level, Brazil has scheduled for October a solar tender that has already received over 10.5 GW of project applications.

At present, Brazil sources less than 1% of its total power from solar energy.

(BRL 1.0 = USD 0.424/EUR 0.330)

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