From pv journal 07-08
Agriculture is a number one financial exercise in Brazil and is anticipated to supply BRL 2.46 trillion ($439 billion) in items by 2024, based on estimates by the Center for Advanced Studies in Applied Economics on the University of São Paulo (USP) . Academics estimate that farming generates BRL 1.65 trillion and livestock BRL 801 billion, together with equipment and repair prices.
The Climate Observatory, a Brazilian NGO, estimates that 617 million tons out of a complete of two.3 billion gross tons of CO.2 The equal launched in Brazil in 2022 from agriculture. Deforestation, the principle supply of emissions within the nation, in 1.12 billion tons of CO2 equal to 2022, primarily because of clearing land for brand spanking new pastures and farms.
The BRL 2.46 trillion determine falls from BRL 2.67 trillion in 2023, resulting from crop failures from local weather change and the affect of El Niño. A extreme drought in mid-western Brazil and unprecedented storms within the south have affected the biggest soy-producing areas.
In this context, solar-powered irrigation can improve agricultural manufacturing and cut back environmental impacts. Renting land for photo voltaic panels gives a steady earnings for farmers, particularly in areas with low or no productiveness, and private and non-private initiatives promote this mannequin.
Policy assets
In July 2024, Brazil’s Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock allotted BRL 508.59 billion to help agribusiness initiatives. RenovAgro’s line of credit score, a key a part of the plan, can finance renewable methods and different practices that decrease greenhouse gasoline emissions.
“Photovoltaic know-how may be very versatile and can be utilized, for instance, for pumping and watering water, cooling meat, milk, and different merchandise, regulating temperature for poultry manufacturing, lighting, electrical fences , telecommunications methods, and monitoring of rural belongings, amongst many different areas,” stated Ronaldo Koloszuk, chairman of the Brazilian photo voltaic trade affiliation, Absolar.
Irrigation know-how
Irrigation know-how is among the major strategies of accelerating agricultural productiveness and decreasing the affect of local weather on crops. The availability of electrical energy is among the obstacles that restrict the enlargement of irrigation know-how, particularly via using irrigation pivots, which contain lengthy sprinkler traces that rotate round a central level.
Normative Resolution 1,000/2021, launched by electrical energy regulator Aneel, legalizes an electrical energy tariff that encourages using power at evening for irrigation and aquaculture. To qualify, a client will need to have a connection put in solely to feed the system accountable for pumping and distributing water.
To make sure that using water is consistent with the preservation of the setting, it’s vital to carry an environmental license and the fitting to make use of water assets or have an exemption from these necessities.
The development potential of irrigation pivots in agricultural states is big. US-based irrigation gear producer Lindsay Corp. states that the Brazilian state of Paraná, with almost 15 million hectares of farmland, has lower than 2% of its arable space irrigated. In São Paulo, the state authorities intends to extend the scale of its irrigated fields to greater than 2 million hectares. Currently, irrigation covers solely 6% of the plantation space in São Paulo and the purpose is to achieve 15% by 2030. Mato Grosso at the moment has 178,000 hectares beneath irrigation and may broaden that to three.9 million hectares.
Agricultural space
Incentives resembling low rates of interest, prolonged cost phrases, and charm durations have prompted many photo voltaic firms to focus on Brazil’s agricultural trade. For instance, photo voltaic gear distributor Genyx launched a brand new enterprise unit in 2023, with a devoted agricultural crew and a extra tailor-made method to the sector.
“Companies need to promote over the cellphone, via WhatsApp,” stated Genyx Director of Institutional Relations Bruno Catta Preta. “We will first go to the agricultural union and method those that promote different gear and inputs. Producers don’t desire PowerPoint of their e-mail; they need to have espresso and discuss nose to nose. They are additionally not afraid of investing BRL 700,000 or BRL 800,000 as a result of they’re used to spending on costly gear resembling pivots, vehicles, and harvesters.
Catta Preta explains that irrigation pivots, for instance, are costly items of apparatus that utilities usually wrestle to maintain linked. In addition, the poor high quality of the electrical energy transmission community that reaches rural properties via the utility grid is an incentive to undertake not solely photo voltaic methods but additionally batteries.
“The distribution traces within the rural half are lengthy and virtually at all times one line,” stated Silvio Robusti, senior product advertising supervisor for Chinese inverter maker Growatt. “There are few connections they usually change simply as a result of they cowl lengthy distances and have a low density of shoppers per kilometer. Maintenance can be extra difficult, the standard of electrical energy is worse than in massive facilities in city areas, and frequent energy outages. In some circumstances, these properties may be left at midnight for as much as a day and a half.”
Growatt supplied inverters for a 24 kW off-grid photo voltaic undertaking put in on a farm within the municipality of Tatuí, within the inside of the state of São Paulo. This enabled the drilling of an artesian properly for entry to ingesting water in addition to the development of two homes on the location.
“In the start there was no primary infrastructure like water and electrical energy, which made it inconceivable to construct two homes for a household to dwell on the property,” stated Oscar Makoto Kojima, the off-grid engineer accountable for the undertaking. . “The consumer additionally made a comparability of connecting to the electrical energy grid with the electrical energy distribution firm within the space however the associated fee was too excessive and the method was time consuming. He then selected an off- grid PV system built-in with batteries The website has 4 9.6 kWh Dyness lithium batteries and 54 JinkoSolar modules, every rated at 440 W.
In the northeastern state of Bahia, cotton producer Sementec Group’s Dom Perignon farm doubled its soybean yield utilizing a solar-powered irrigation system and lowered diesel consumption by 70%. The undertaking was put in by Loop Energia and is equipped by eight artesian wells, seven central irrigation pivots, and three storage swimming pools with a complete capability of 600 million liters. It is served by a personal, 21 km, 34.5 kV medium-voltage community.
The off-grid system contains 1.2 MW of photo voltaic capability with greater than 2,000 JA Solar bifacial modules, every with a ranking of 545 W. It additionally has 9 PHB inverters and 5 diesel turbines – three with 700 kW capability every and two with 550 kW capability every.
With greater than 900 hectares of soybean plantations, the farm makes use of daylight to extend productiveness and cut back manufacturing prices, stated Loop Energia CEO Luvânio Lopes. The each day diesel consumption of 4,000 liters is lowered to 1,000 liters, which represents a month-to-month financial savings of BRL 500,000. Smart grid know-how has made it doable to extend soybean manufacturing from between 40 and 60 baggage per hectare to greater than 100 baggage per hectare per harvest.
State applications
In September 2023, the Ceará state authorities authorized the Renda do Sol Project, which helps the implementation of PV methods for small farmers and low-income households all through the state.
“In the long run, we would like the state of Ceará and metropolis halls to purchase the power,” stated Governor Elmano de Freitas. “This is essential for our growth. To do that, we need to practice these households and make it doable for them to get financing for his or her solar energy crops.
Under the undertaking plan, two pilots will first be put in within the cities of Jaguaribara and Tamboril, the place greater than 160 households are concerned within the manufacturing of fruits, greens, and milk. It is anticipated that the month-to-month earnings of these households will improve by greater than 50% with the extra funds generated by this system.
In December 2023, the federal government of the state of Minas Gerais authorized the Minas Gerais Rural Renewable Energy Program, which gives tax incentives for agricultural producers, together with household farmers and agri-ecological customers of the nabag -or power.
Brazilian states additionally supply particular traces of finance for the sector. The Paraná Renewable Energy (RenovaPR) program, for instance, financed 462 small photo voltaic technology initiatives within the first quarter of 2024 alone, at a price of BRL 44.5 million.
The Paulista Sustainable Rural Development credit score line launched BRL 10.3 million to 109 producers in 52 municipalities within the state of São Paulo in 2023 for renewable power actions. In 2022, BRL 13.6 million is made accessible to 115 producers in 69 cities.
Agrivoltaic pilots
A partnership between the ability firm Cemig, the Minas Gerais Agricultural Research Company, and the Telecommunications Research and Development Center will mix photo voltaic and crop-farming on the identical land, growing the worth of land use and enabling the event of latest enterprise mannequin. The complete funding is round BRL 10.5 million and the analysis shall be carried out in 30 months.
“We will make a whole evaluation of the agrivoltaics system tailored for Minas Gerais, involving technical, regulatory, and economic-financial facets from the views of the agricultural producer, distributor of power, and built-in system answer supplier,” stated. the industrial supervisor of the telecom analysis group, Carlos Alberto Previdelli.
Sunfarming, a German firm specializing in 1 MW methods that optimize using gentle for photo voltaic technology and plant cultivation, goals to develop 4 GW of agrivoltaic technology capability in 4 Brazilian states. In Pará, it intends to develop as much as 1 GW, beginning with Belterra, the place it may possibly set up as much as 30 MW websites mixed with land reforestation. The firm can be growing initiatives in Rio Grande do Sul, Rio de Janeiro, and Ceará.
The Strategic Solar Energy Research Group of the Federal University of Santa Catarina put in a 100 kW agrivoltaic system on its campus with funding from the Spanish petrochemical firm Repsol, via the R&D program of Brazil’s National Oil and Gas Agency. The website has photovoltaic panels made in Brazil by the Chinese battery maker BYD, with the goal of being utilized in agribusiness and structure.
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