Brazil's photovoltaic installed capacity exceeds 55GW, with distributed power accounting for more than 70%!

According to the latest report of the Brazilian Photovoltaic Industry Association (ABSOLAR), Brazil's cumulative photovoltaic installed capacity has exceeded 55GW (DC), accounting for 22.2% of the country's power installed structure. At present, photovoltaic power generation is second only to hydropower in Brazil's power sources, which accounts for more than 40%.

According to ABSOLAR's report, in 2024, Brazil will add 14.97GW of DC photovoltaic installed capacity, bringing the total installed capacity to 52.88GW, including 37.4GW of distributed photovoltaic and 17.6GW of large ground power stations. Data provided by the Brazilian National Electricity Regulatory Agency (ANEEL) further confirms this development trend. As of February 28, 2025, Brazil's micro and small distributed photovoltaic (MMGD) installed capacity exceeded 37.61GW, with a total of 28.3 million systems connected to the grid, of which residential systems dominate.

The ABSOLAR report pointed out that since 2012, the photovoltaic industry has attracted more than 251.1 billion Brazilian reals (about 43.9 billion US dollars) in investment and created more than 1.6 million jobs. However, the country's photovoltaic industry still faces many challenges, the biggest bottleneck of which is the curtailment of renewable energy, which prevents companies from obtaining compensation, by the grid connection barriers of small-scale photovoltaic systems. The curtailment of projects invested in Brazil has caused the French photovoltaic company Voltalia to record a net loss in 2024. ABSOLAR also called on the government to approve the relevant bill 624/2023 on the Basic Energy Income Plan (REBE) to update the bill 14.300/2022 to address the limitations encountered by distributed systems when connecting to the distribution network. In addition, the association is pushing the government to include photovoltaic technology in the A-5 new energy auction held in August 2025 to promote the development of the industry.

ABSOLAR Chairman Ronaldo Koloszuk pointed out that the decline in the price of photovoltaic modules is conducive to the popularization of photovoltaics in the Brazilian market, but the large supply of low-priced modules from Chinese companies may be unfavorable to local manufacturers.

Recently, Brazil's National Interconnected Grid (SIN) announced that the country's photovoltaic power generation set a new single-hour record at 11:00 on March 14, 2025, reaching 37.869GW, accounting for 39% of the country's power load at that time.