Rio de Janeiro – A total of 429 projects have been accredited for the Energy Research Company (EPE, in the Portuguese acronym), linked to the Brazilian Ministry of Mines and Energy, for energy auction A-3, which the federal government will hold next Monday (18th), aiming to ensure the power supply to Brazil’s consumer market in 2016. The installed capacity is 10,460 megawatts (MW).
Wind energy sources account for 381 of the projects, at a combined 9,191 megawatts (MW), with 105 projects in the state of Bahia and 110 in Rio Grande do Sul. The remaining wind power projects are in the states of Ceará (51), Maranhão (06), Pernambuco (10), Piauí (26), Rio Grande do Norte (71) and Santa Catarina (02).
The EPE press office has informed that the maximum auction price will be R$ 126 per megawatt-hour (MW/h) for all bidding parties.
EPE chairman Maurício Tolmasquim has noted that this is the first auction focusing exclusively on renewable energy sources, and it marks the debut of solar power in energy auctions held annually by the Brazilian federal government.
According to Tolmasquim, although solar power is not able to compete with other sources yet, cost-wise, especially with wind power, “the projects in the auction enable the EPE to plan the phasing in of solar power into Brazil’s energy matrix.” Thirty-one photovoltaic centrals have been accredited for the auction, with a combined capacity of 813 MW.
*Translated by Gabriel Pomerancblum
