A Canadian-Chinese company, Canadian Solar has secured a Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) for 12 years with one of the leading investment banks in Latin America, BTG Pactual to construct solar plants in Brazil that will produce a total of 862MW. Under the terms of the agreement, Canadian Solar will supply solar power from a group of projects that it will build in the state of Minas Gerais and which will have a combined capacity of 170 MW. 

The company will begin construction on these facilities in 2021 and their completion is scheduled by the end of 2022. The solar module maker furthermore, secured a 15-year PPA from power provider Furnas, a subsidiary of Brazilian utility Eletrobras, to which it will supply electricity from two PV projects totaling 692 MW.

The first project will be located in the state of Ceará and will have a capacity of 260 MW while the second project, with an installed power capacity of 432 MW, is being developed in the state of Piuaí. Construction on both plants will begin in 2022 and the start of commercial operation is planned for late 2023.

 All projects will use Canadian Solar’s latest high-power 7-series bifacial modules, which have a reported power output of up to 665MW. Canadian Solar claims the new projects will bring its solar PPA portfolio in the country to more than 2.2 GW.

The manufacturer has a PV module factory near Sao Paulo with an annual production capacity of 380 MW. Solar projects that feature Brazilian-made components can access financing from Brazil’s BNDES development bank and Banco do Nordeste. 

Dr. Shawn Qu, Chairman, and CEO of Canadian Solar stated that “We are also making good progress on our project monetization strategy in Brazil, where we are in the process of forming a Brazilian Participation Fund for Infrastructure projects, or FIP-IE, which is on track to launch in 2021. This will help accelerate our growth in the Brazilian market as we optimize our capital allocation.”