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A Chinese company that arrived in Brazil in 2016 managed to become, in five years, the largest seller of photovoltaic panels for the solar power generation market in the country. Trina Solar imported to Brazil enough solar panels to generate about 1,500 megawatts at peak last year alone, according to data from consulting firm Greener.
Trina was founded in China in 1997 and today supplies more than 100 countries with modules and other equipment for photovoltaic generation, as well as smart grid and power systems and a cloud power operating platform. The company has been listed on the Shanghai Stock Exchange since 2020, when it achieved global operating revenues of $4.5 billion.
Brazil now accounts for almost 10% of the company’s sales worldwide, said Álvaro García-Maltrás, Trina’s vice president for Latin America and the Caribbean. “This is very significant, especially considering how fast we have grown in Brazil. It is very rewarding to see that when we arrived in the country, the market was relatively small, and now it is one of the main markets in the world,” he said.
Trina offers solutions for both centralized generation, which are the large power plants, and for distributed generation, which includes projects in which the consumer himself generates power through panels on the roof, for example. Mr. García-Maltrás says that operating on both fronts has contributed to the company’s rapid expansion in Brazil, because both segments have seen great growth in the country in recent years. Between 2016 and February 2022, the solar source went from 93 MW of installed power in Brazil to 13,520 MW, according to data from the Brazilian Photovoltaic Solar Energy Association (Absolar).
For this year, the source is expected to see a new leap in Brazil, especially in the segment of distributed generation. New rules for projects in this segment were signed into law by President Jair Bolsonaro in January, with the forecast that the projects that request connection to the electrical system until the beginning of 2023 will remain exempt from paying grid usage fees. The scenario has generated a rush for new projects.
“The stable legal framework will allow the distributed generation segment in Brazil to grow even more. Last year, the growth was already strong, but I believe that by 2022 it can be up to 50% bigger,” Mr. García-Maltrás said.
To meet the growth, the group intends to expand the team in the country this year. Despite the upbeat perspectives, the executive said that the market suffered with the pandemic and that logistical restrictions in the delivery of equipment that comes from China will probably still be felt in the first half of this year, with a return to normal expected for the second half of 2022. “This is limiting our ability to get the equipment here, in some cases. The goods are typically manufactured in China and brought to Brazil, so the distance is great,” he said.
Another point of attention, in the specific case of Brazil, is the volatility of the currency and the impacts of this on the final costs of the projects. Data from Greener show that the prices of the photovoltaic system for the final customer in January 2022 saw an average year-over-year increase of 8% and reached the highest levels in the last two years.
According to Mr. García-Maltrás, however, price variations have not limited the growth of the source in the country. There are also no major changes expected in the trends for the sector after this year’s presidential elections. “Solar technology is among the most competitive. I believe success and growth is guaranteed. Governments can make it faster or slower, but growth will materialize,” he said.
Among the technological bets for the next few years, the company foresees the growth of distributed generation projects with storage solutions, such as batteries, which help guarantee the autonomy of power supply when there is no sunlight, such as at night. In the segment of centralized generation, one bet is on green hydrogen solutions associated with solar power. “This will be one of the technological solutions that will lead to market growth. We already see this very advanced in Chile, for example. Several centralized generation projects in Chile are already being designed with these systems,” he said.
Source: Valor International