In the month of October 2020, Brazil's National Electric Energy Agency (ANEEL) said 318.34 MW of new power generation capacity was commissioned in the South American country comprising 30% of solar PV plants in the form of 95.68 MW capacity.
The other capacity, 147.28 MW or 46% was added in the form of wind power and 75.38 MW or 24% from thermal and small hydro power plants. With all this, the cumulative installed power generation capacity of the country went up to 173.5 GW at the end of October 2020, according to ANEEL of which low carbon sources comprise 74.76%.
Till the end of September 2020, the installed solar power capacity of Brazil grew to 6.727 GW, comprising 3.018 GW of utility scale solar and 3.709 GW of distributed generation (DG) solar, according to Brazilian solar PV association ABSOLAR, growing a massive uptake despite COVID-19 disruptions. In comparison, till the end of 2019 the total installed solar PV capacity was only 4.581 GW, as per the association statistics. That means 2.15 GW were added in the first 9 months of 2020, which is as much as was installed in 2019 as a whole.
With 95.68 MW capacity added in October 2020, the cumulative at the end of 10M/2020 should be over 6.8 GW.
The factors that promote the growth of DG in Brazil include incentives for the segment in the form of net metering and low-interest rate financing, from both private and public banks. Wood Mackenzie Analyst for Solar PV Technology Systems & Operations, Molly Cox in an editorial said these features are expected to fuel further growth in the DG segment through 2025.
In its previous analysis ABSOLAR said till the end of H1/2020, Brazil's cumulative installed solar power capacity exceeded 6 GW thanks mainly to more than 1 GW distributed solar generation capacity in the period (see Cumulative PV Capacity Of Brazil Now Over 6 GW).