Latin America PV News Snippets

Celsia and Parex have announced commissioning a 3 MW solar farm in Colombia; Soltec lands 238 MW order from AES Andes in Chile; Brazil reveals tariff cap for A-4 New Energy Auction.

3 MW solar plant online in Colombia: Colombian energy company Celsia has announced inauguration of the 1^st solar energy farm in Casanare department of the country, a region rich in oil fields, with 3 MW installed capacity. It realized the project along with oil and gas producer Parex Resources Colombia Ltd Branch. It is located in the municipality of Villanueva in the Kitaro/Akira field in the Cabrestero block, where Parex said it has carried out hydrocarbon exploration for more than 10 years. It will generate 5,900,000 kWh of clean energy annually. The Minister of Mines and Energy, Colombia said this project now takes the installed number of solar projects in the country to 21.

Soltec to supply trackers for 238 MW in Chile: Spanish solar tracker supplier Soltec has been contracted by AES Andes to supply its single-shaft tracker SF7 products for 2 projects of the company with a combined capacity of 238 MW. Both the projects will be equipped with a total of 4,367 piles and 439,068 modules and 5,227 solar trackers. Soltec said these projects add to more than 2 GW supplied by Soltec to Chile projects.

Tariff caps for A-4 auction in Brazil: Brazilian Electricity Regulatory Agency (ANEEL) has released the tariff caps for its forthcoming A-4 New Energy Auction, scheduled for May 27, 2022. For hydro and thermoelectric biomass projects, the maximum applicable tariff is BRL 315.00 ($63.45) per MWh and for wind & solar PV facilities it is BRL 225.00 ($45.32) per MWh. It has registered a total of 75.25 GW of capacity for this auction round out of which 97.35% or 73.256 GW is represented by wind and solar PV alone. Maximum projects with 19.215 GW is registered in the state of Bahia, followed by 14.0 GW in Minas Gerais, 8.06 GW in Piaui and 6.09 GW for Ceara. Most wind and solar projects are concentrated in the Northeast region while thermoelectric projects are located in the Midwest and Southeast. Hydroelectric projects are located in the South and Center-West regions. Winning wind and solar energy projects will be contracted for 15 years and need to come online by January 1, 2026.

Brazil will hold A-5 and A-6 auctions on September 16, 2022 with solar PV technology included only in the A-5 auction (see Brazil's A-5 & A-6 Auctions On Sept. 16, 2022).