President participates in the inauguration ceremony in the city of Sobradinho, Bahia, and activates the first floating solar plant of its kind

confirming the report by the International Energy Agency (IEA), which announced that Brazil is the country with the least polluting energy matrix in the world, now it was the turn of another pioneering project in Brazil.
Inaugurated last Monday (05/08), with the presence of President Jair Bolsonaro, the first stage of the Floating Solar Power Plant installed in the Reservoir of Sobradinho (BA), of the Companhia Hidro Elétrica do São Francisco (chef).

The president insisted on highlighting the importance of using clean energy sources and declared: “Today's inauguration of the Sobradinho Floating Solar Power Plant will serve as a model for many other regions of Brazil, so that this clean energy will increasingly flourish in our Brazil”.

The project, which in the president's opinion is an example for the world, shows that Brazil preserves the environment and uses the Amazon Forest in a sustainable way.

The project

The floating solar plant was commissioned for the first time by the president and has the capacity to generate 1 peak megawatt (MWp). According to Chesf (Companhia Hidro Elétrica do São Francisco) the plant is the largest research and development project of this type of floating technology installed in a hydroelectric reservoir in the country.

The project also foresees a second floating solar plant to be implemented in a second stage also in the Sobradinho Reservoir.
It is estimated that the amounts invested in the two projects will be around R$ 56 million.

Bento Albuquerque, Minister of Mines and Energy, who was also present at the inauguration event for the solar plants, emphasized that the pioneering spirit of the project will serve as a reference for the model to be used in other reservoirs of plants in operation.

The minister made a point of mentioning that the energy source does not pose environmental risks and generates jobs in the installation, operation and maintenance of the system.
The president signed a decree qualifying the project as a priority for the Public Private Partnership (PPI) program so that it
increase the energy potential of the PISF (Project for the Integration of the São Francisco River with Hydrographic Basins in the North East) and guarantee resources for pumping the river's water, which currently costs R$300 million per year.

The Sobradinho solar plant is the first project that allows the installation of a floating solar plant in hydroelectric lakes and makes use of the same substations and transmission lines that drain the energy produced by the hydroelectric plant.

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