The National Electric Energy Agency (ANEEL) says Brazil exited 2023 with a record annual high of energy generation capacity coming online, driven by large-scale wind and solar PV energy plants. The 10.324 GW combined capacity generation exceeded ANEEL's forecast of 10.302 GW for the entire year.
While wind energy made up 4.92 GW of the total 10.32 GW reported, solar PV grew by 4.071 GW.
A total of 104 solar PV facilities contributed to the annual capacity addition last year. However, wind energy accounted for 47.65% of total annual energy additions as 140 projects came online.
The remaining capacity addition of 1.2 GW came from 33 thermoelectric power plants, 158 MW from 11 small hydroelectric plants, and 11.4 MW from 3 hydroelectric generation plants.
ANEEL points out that the month of December 2023 saw the largest addition during the year with 1.9 GW of capacity coming online. This included 35 wind energy projects of 956.7 MW and 12 solar PV facilities of 374.8 MW combined capacity.
In a separate announcement, ANEEL stated that the country grid-connected more than 625,000 distributed micro- and mini-generation systems in 2023, representing over 7.4 GW of capacity to the 18.4 GW already connected at the end of 2022. Almost all of this new capacity is based on solar PV technology.
Between 2009 and January 1, 2024, Brazil's total installed distributed micro- and mini-generation capacity totaled more than 25.8 GW. Minas Gerais leads the tally among the states with 3.5 GW, followed by São Paulo at 3.47 GW and Rio Grande do Sul at 1.60 GW.
At the end of 2023, Brazil's combined power generation capacity exceeded 199 GW, comprising 83.67% of renewable energy.
Local solar PV association ABSOLAR had pegged Brazil's aggregate solar PV capacity at 35 GW—including 24.4 GW of distributed generation and 10.6 GW of large-scale projects till November 13, 2023 (see Brazil's Operational Solar PV Capacity Exceeds 35 GW).
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