The speedy development of renewable vitality in Brazil has not been matched by transmission and distribution infrastructure. Connection restrictions for each “distributed-” and centralized-generation websites are main corporations to undertake new methods to take care of enlargement, stories pv journal Brasil’s Livia Neves.
From pv journal 06/24
Grid connection queues in Brazil are providing new alternatives for vitality storage and hybrid techniques and opening new vitality enterprise fashions. Renewables corporations together with Auren, Statkraft, and Casa dos Ventos are including photo voltaic and batteries to their utility-scale wind energy websites to make use of present energy transmission capability.
Batteries are additionally making inroads into small-scale, distributed era in response to connection shortages to the utility-run, low-voltage distribution community and to energy failures in states together with São Paulo. As well as, companies comparable to France’s GreenYellow are adopting a “zero-grid” method specializing in era on the level of consumption with out injection into the grid. GreenYellow has beforehand added greater than 200 MW of remote-generation photo voltaic capability to the grid.
Casa dos Ventos has instructed pv journal Brasil it’s going to start development in 2024 on 300 MW of photo voltaic in Bahia, with 200 MW to be added to its under-construction 553 MW Babilônia Centro wind web site and 100 MW at its operational, 360 MW Babilônia Sul wind farm. In Could 2024, photo voltaic improvement engineering supervisor Guilherme Castro mentioned the photo voltaic vegetation will share transmission system reference to the generators, with entry granted in April 2024.
These vegetation will present vitality underneath the “autoprodução,” or self-production mannequin, during which the tip person turns into a associate within the undertaking and receives reductions on some taxes and on transmission system expenses. Whereas self-production electrical energy is extra expensive than present low wholesale costs, it’s much less risky and the association makes new renewables websites extra viable within the low-electricity worth atmosphere.
Sizing hybrid vegetation
Casa dos Ventos’ newly hybridized websites should persist with the vitality transmission offers signed for the unique wind vegetation, elevating the danger of curtailment of any extra energy generated. “Naturally, if there’s a restrict, curtailment can occur so photo voltaic sizing is a delicate level,” in line with engineering supervisor Castro.
Correctly dimensioned photo voltaic will help wind energy era, by controlling reactive vitality with photo voltaic inverters, for instance. “Within the case of related vegetation, if the system operator orders a restriction, it’s simpler to chop photo voltaic and hold wind as a result of wind generators have a mechanical inertia,” mentioned Castro. That opens up a marketplace for photo voltaic corporations, he added. “One of many [solar] sector’s primary pains is the issue of accessing the grid. For photo voltaic corporations that don’t have wind experience, trying to find a wind associate that isn’t already taking a look at this might be a possibility.”
Shading from wind generators is much less of an issue than in different international locations due to land availability in Brazil, and Castro mentioned Casa dos Ventos’ websites will obtain a decrease overload between panels’ direct-current era capability and the alternating-current score of their inverters. He cited an “overload ratio” of “between 1:1 and 1:15, relying on the worth of the greenback and the panel. We’ve seen 20%, or 1:2. Within the case of a curtailment, that’s cheaper.”
Power storage
Curbing extra energy is cheaper than batteries, mentioned Castro. “The battery may assist ship flat vitality however in our evaluation, at right now’s battery worth, it’s nonetheless not price optimizing. However there may be an acceleration within the fall in prices which may make the choice viable.”
Norwegian developer Statkraft will embrace batteries in its BRL 926 million ($181 million) photo voltaic hybridization of the Ventos de Santa Eugênia and Morro do Cruzeiro wind websites in Bahia. With a complete era capability of 275 MW, development on the latter ought to start in June 2024 and finish in August 2025. Constructing will start at Ventos de Santa Eugênia in July 2024 and end in November 2025.
In November 2023, Auren Energia inaugurated its 48.1 MW Sol do Piauí photo voltaic plant subsequent to the 206 MW Ventos do Piauí wind farm, which has operated since 2021. The BRL 255 million hybridization undertaking, in Curral Novo, Piauí, was the primary accredited by state physique the Agência Nacional de Energia Elétrica (Aneel). In 2021, Aneel launched hybrid plant permissions – that includes shared licenses – and related plant permits, with separate licenses however enabling new installations to be paired with working belongings.
Brazil’s lithium vitality storage manufacturing chain
Battery cells, not presently manufactured in Brazil, are the “lacking hyperlink” within the provide chain of the world’s fifth-largest lithium producer. The nation assembles battery packs and techniques and its carmakers have electrical car (EV) strains. The Gas for the Future invoice, to decarbonize Brazil’s roads, also needs to increase the mineral sector. Greater than 1 million tons of Brazilian lithium – within the states of Minas Gerais, Pernambuco, Rio Grande do Norte, and Ceará – type the world’s seventh-largest reserve. EV demand is anticipated to boost the two,200 tons of lithium that Brazil produces yearly. Sigma Lithium started exporting to Chinese language battery makers in 2023. In the meantime, carmakers together with BYD, Volkswagen, and Marcopolo assemble heavy EVs in Brazil with imported Chinese language batteries. In February 2024, Brazil’s secretary for improvement, trade, commerce and providers, Uallace Moreira, mentioned inexperienced industrialization coverage ought to appeal to extra hyperlinks of the battery provide chain to Brazil. The federal authorities introduced, in January 2024, the New Trade Brazil program, together with a push for home lithium battery cell manufacturing. “We clearly see that Brazil, even from a geopolitical and strategic viewpoint, has to have a cell manufacturing facility,” mentioned Marcelo Rodrigues, vice-president of enterprise and innovation at stationary storage firm UCB Energy. “To do that, we have now to unlock demand.” Within the Manaus Free Commerce Zone, in Amazonas, UCB produces lithium batteries by integrating storage system electronics with imported battery cells. The corporate has provided batteries for 42,000 techniques underneath a federal authorities common vitality program for remoted communities within the Amazon area – amounting to between 150 MWh and 200 MWh. You.On and WEG additionally assemble battery techniques domestically. Alongside China’s Huawei and TBEA, they’re keeping track of demand for as much as 2 GWh of initiatives in search of to participate in a capability reserve public sale the federal authorities is getting ready, signaling the market’s curiosity in investing in battery vitality storage techniques (BESS).
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Zero grid
A flurry of functions for small photo voltaic arrays was prompted by a deadline for a program underneath which mills would obtain like-for-like credit score for extra vitality injected into the grid. That regulation utilized to techniques as much as 5 MW in scale, though the overwhelming majority of such initiatives have as much as 75 kW of era capability. Most of the requests have been turned down by electrical energy distribution corporations, nevertheless, who claimed that reversing the circulate of energy in areas with many distributed-generation techniques may trigger overvoltage within the grid.
In April 2024, GreenYellow introduced a brand new technique for its distributed era phase in Brazil, to adapt to the brand new situations. As much as that time, the corporate had relied on the distant self-consumption mannequin of constructing energy vegetation away from the place of consumption and utilizing the electrical energy distribution community. GreenYellow put in greater than 200 MW of such initiatives in Brazil.
The altering nature of regulation has proved extra damaging to remote-generation websites than to self-consumption arrays, in line with GreenYellow. The French firm believes that rooftop era for the business and industrial sector has nice potential in its zero-grid mannequin, which serves free and captive market electrical energy customers and doesn’t contain grid use.
GreenYellow goals to shut 30 MW of rooftop capability in Brazil by the tip of 2024, utilizing an tools rental mannequin. Via an settlement signed with Brazilian installer Enerzee, GreenYellow will deal with every little thing from the overall funding to make initiatives viable to managing operation and upkeep of the arrays. Enerzee will likely be liable for putting in and supplying the tools. Each corporations will work collectively on shopper era.
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