Brazil reached, at the end of 2021, 33.2 GW of wind power and solar

At the end of 2021, Brazil reached 33.2 GW of power, adding wind energy and solar sources (centralized and distributed).

This number represents approximately 17% of the composition of the total installed capacity by source in Matrix Eléctrica.

The growth of these sources has been occurring very rapidly and indicates the path that private investment will follow in the coming years.

While wind power grew 26% from 2020 to 2021, centralized solar grew 59% and distributed solar generation grew 80% in the same period.

These numbers indicate that, in relation to what happened in other countries, generation by solar source will occupy the first place between the two sources.

This fact is corroborated by the hybridization of the wind farms that will incorporate the solar source in their facilities, and the exponential growth of the distributed solar source, which has grown by 209% in the last two years.

Public policy managers should study more carefully the evolution of these sources. EPE recently released projections in the PDE 2031, where these sources will represent 25% of the installed capacity in 2031, and that together with the hydraulic source they will account for 70% of the installed capacity.

It should be noted that these numbers could be much better, for this it would be enough to maintain the incentives for distributed generation and the use of the network for centralized sources. But today those who defend the maintenance of incentives for dirty energy sources, such as gas and coal, predominate.

According to the EPE, according to the PDE 2031, if all the incentives for distributed generation were maintained, around R$ 168 billion would be invested in distributed generation in the next 10 years.

The bill becomes much higher if we consider the divestments in centralized generation (wind and solar) of energy that will lose the subsidies for the use of the network.

Still rowing against the current, according to the PDE, by 2031 the following powers will be incorporated by solar and wind sources:

26.1 GW of generation distributed by solar source;
2.7 GW of centralized solar power; Y,
4.3 GW of wind power.