With a plan to reach 1 GWac of power by 2025 and expand its role in solar energy generation, EDP is betting on a solar plant project

The company EDP Brasil made public, last week, the investment in the Novo Oriente Solar plant and, according to João Marques da Cruz, the company's president, intends to make another solar plant viable still in 2022. has job openings, has a goal of expanding solar energy generation, in addition to seeking to reach 1 GWac of power located in photovoltaic projects by the year 2025.

In an interview with the Broadcast Energia website, President Cruz also stated: “Novo Oriente is the second investment being made in a large-scale solar – the first was Monte Verde, in the Northeast, which was announced in October – and we are working to ensure that this year there will be a third. We want that, for the year (2023), there will be two more, always with that dimension of three hundred and few megawatts-peak, which means 250 MWac”.

The Novo Oriente solar plant will be installed in Ilha Solteira (SP) and should start operating in 2024. With a capacity of 254 MWac, the invested capital will be around R$ 900 million, if taking into account the expenditure of R$ 3,5, 3,8 million to R$ XNUMX million per MWac.

The new solar plant is a joint venture between two companies

The Novo Oriente solar plant project consists of an association between EDP Brasil and EDP Renováveis, in which each company is responsible for 50% of the undertaking. This association ensures, according to the group, the specialized knowledge and economy of scale in construction achieved by the company, in addition to enabling better commercialization of the solar energy in the local market.

Cruz also stated that the realization of the 1 GWac of solar energy plan by EDP Brasil by the year 2025, both in centralized solar plants and in those with distributed generation, is the company's reaction to the energy transformation process and changes in the mood. The president of EDP explained that hydro energy will be replaced by solar energy.

As for commercialization, the president said he had given up some profitability to reduce the risk of the project, while the company's tactic is to reach the rate of 85% of contracted energy for a long period and preserve only 15% of exposure, this amount aimed at the group's commercialization company. In addition, he pointed out that the Novo Oriente solar plant already has a purchase and sale agreement for 120 MWac, which made the initiative possible.

The method of marketing solar energy practiced by EDP aims at “remote self-production” for industries and companies. Cruz argues that the period is propitious for this form of transaction. According to him, customers can do business for up to 15 years, in which the cost of energy is braked at a constant price and fixed by inflation, with savings of up to 15% compared to distributed generation projects. “This is an efficient way to have solar, so it is viable to have long-term contracting, because we have the capacity to share this gain with the customer, even in the face of distributed generation solar”, he also said in an interview with Broadcast.

President of EDP also expresses plan for future plants

At this moment, during the installation of the solar plant in Ilha Solteira, EDP is already committed to making another solar plant feasible and has the plan to, later this year, disclose the next project. The new initiative, according to Cruz, has not yet been defined: “We have not yet decided whether the next one will be in the Southeast or Northeast, we have a pipeline for both, it will depend on the interconnection capacity to the network and customers”.

Furthermore, the president of EDP explained that the installation of the Novo Oriente solar plant in the Southeast region, the most important commercial center in Brazil, has the function of favoring transactions and business, bearing in mind that most customers are located in such region and, thus, the risk of discrepancy between the energy values ​​in the Northeast and in the Southeast.

Cruz also highlighted that he intends to take advantage of EDP's corporate financing in order to promote the development of projects: "EDP Brasil is a company with little leverage - on the balance sheet of December 31, 2021, our debt, after payment of dividends, was 2,6 times net debt/Ebitda, that's not much, we have room for our financing at the corporate level”, he told Broadcast Energia.

He also argued that the unfavorable situation faced by the solar generation supply chain, thanks to the lack of stock of industrial inputs and logistical problems, has already changed. He associated the period of difficulties with the value of the dollar, which reached its peak at R$5,60, which caused great tension on the expenses of solar projects.

Finally, he added that EDP Renováveis ​​ensures supply to all plants and that the provisions for supply are already included in the project.