Commercial operation starts for 475 MW solar project in Brazil

Patria Investments has announced the beginning of operations of 475 MW Sol do Sertao solar complex located in Oliveira dos Brejinhos, Bahia State, Brazil. With an investment of BRL1.4 billion (US$250 million), the project was developed by Essentia Energia, a Patria Investments company dedicated to the renewable energy sector, with a focus on solar and wind power.

The project has an estimated capacity to serve around 580,000 households, saving the emission of approximately 465,000 tons of CO2 per year. With modern infrastructure and more than one million bifacial solar panels (which have photovoltaic cells with two sides, instead of just one, to absorb solar energy), 9,000 trackers, and 122 inverters, installed in an area of more than 1,000 hectares of land.

The Sol do Sertao plant was the largest project finance structured by Brazil's development bank, BNDES, for a solar project up to its signing in October 2020, of BRL910 million (US$167 million). The efficiency in the construction period was another differential of the project, with more than 1,600 workers in the site at its peak: even having begun in March 2020, coinciding with the outbreak of the pandemic, it was built on schedule and was completed in just 19 months.