Enel Starts Construction Of New 103 Mw Solar Plant In Brazil
Enel, through its renewable energy subsidiary Enel Green Power Brasil Participações Ltda. (“EGPB”), has started the construction of the Horizonte solar plant, which is located in Tabocas do Brejo Velho in the state of Bahia in north-eastern Brazil.
“With the start of construction of Horizonte, Enel has reached yet another milestone in the implementation of its growth plan in Brazil,” said Carlo Zorzoli, Enel’s Country Manager in Brazil. “Once again we confirm us as being a reliable energy player in the Brazilian landscape by actually building sustainable power generation facilities out of the capacity we have been awarded through tenders.”
The new facility will have an installed capacity of 103 MW and once completed will be able to generate over 220 GWh per year, enough to meet the annual energy consumption needs of more than 108,000 Brazilian households while avoiding the emission of about 129,000 tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere.Horizonte is owned by a special purpose vehicle (SPV) held by EGPB and is expected to enter into service in the second half of 2017. Enel will be investing around 110 million US dollars in construction of the facility through the Group¿s own resources.
Horizonte will be supported by 20-year power supply contracts for the sale of energy generated by the plant to the Brazilian Chamber of Commercialisation of Electric Energy (Câmara de Comercialização da Energia Elétrica or CCEE). The project was awarded to the Enel Group together with the 158 MW Lapa and 292 MW Nova Olinda solar projects during the “Leilão de Reserva” public tender in August 2015, which made the Group the Brazilian solar industry’s top player in terms of installed capacity and project portfolio.
The Enel Group is also building another two solar projects in Bahia: Ituverava (254 MW) and Lapa (158 MW). Horizonte will be located next to Ituverava, meaning that EGP will be able to pool resources both during the construction and operation of the two projects, which will share the same connection infrastructure.
EGPB currently has a total installed capacity of 546 MW, of which 401 MW comes from wind, 12 MW from PV solar and 133 MW from hydro. Moreover, the company has 442 MW of wind, 102 MW of hydro and 807 MW of solar projects in execution.
