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Agriculture accounts for 21.5% of Brazil’s gross domestic product and 27% of its emissions. Photovoltaic companies are now targeting a sector that accounts for 14% of the country’s small-scale installations. Thanks to credit incentives and growing knowledge of the technology, agricultural companies and solar specialists are discovering new opportunities for collaboration.
Agriculture is one of Brazil’s main economic activities and is expected to produce 2.46 trillion reais ($439 billion) of goods in 2024, according to estimates by the Center for Advanced Studies in Applied Economics at the University of São Paulo (USP). Academics estimate that agriculture will generate 1.65 trillion reais and livestock 801 billion, including the costs of machinery and services.
The Climate Observatory, a Brazilian NGO, estimates that 617 million tons of Brazils total 2.3 billion gross tons of CO2 equivalent emitted in 2022 come from agriculture. Deforestation, the countrys main source of emissions, with 1.12 billion tons of CO2 equivalent in 2022, is mainly due to land clearing for new pastures and crop fields.
The figure of R$2.46 trillion was down from R$2.67 trillion in 2023, due to crop losses caused by climate change and the El Niño effect. Severe drought in central-western Brazil and unprecedented storms in the south affected the largest soybean-producing regions.
In this context, solar-powered irrigation increases agricultural productivity and reduces environmental impact. Leasing land for solar panels provides stable income to farmers, especially in areas with low or zero productivity, and public and private initiatives are promoting this model.
Political resources
In July 2024, Brazil’s Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock allocated R$508.59 billion to support agro-industrial projects. The RenovAgro credit line, a key component of the plan, can finance renewable systems and other practices that reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
"Photovoltaic technology is extremely versatile and can be used, for example, to pump and irrigate water, refrigerate meat, milk and other products, regulate temperature for poultry production, provide lighting, install electric fences, telecommunications systems and monitor rural property, among many other functions," says Ronaldo Koloszuk, president of the Brazilian solar industry association, Absolar.
Irrigation technology
Irrigation technology is one of the main methods to increase agricultural productivity and reduce the impact of climate on crops. The availability of electricity is one of the barriers limiting the expansion of irrigation technology, especially through the use of irrigation pivots, which consist of long lines of sprinklers rotating around a central point.
Regulatory Resolution 1,000/2021, introduced by electricity regulator Aneel, legislated an electricity tariff that incentivized the use of nighttime energy for irrigation and aquaculture. To be eligible for the tariff, the consumer must have a connection installed exclusively to feed the system responsible for pumping and distributing water.
To ensure that water use is in line with environmental preservation, it is necessary to have an environmental license and the right to use water resources or to have an exemption from such requirements.
The growth potential for irrigation pivots in agricultural states is considerable. U.S. irrigation equipment maker Lindsay Corp. says the Brazilian state of Paraná, with nearly 15 million hectares of farmland, has less than 2% of its arable land irrigated. In São Paulo, the state government wants to increase irrigated land by more than 2 million hectares. Irrigation currently covers only 6% of São Paulo’s cropland and the goal is to reach 15% by 2030. Mato Grosso now has 178,000 hectares of irrigated land and could expand that to 3.9 million hectares.
Agricultural niche
Incentives such as low interest rates, extended payment terms and grace periods have led several solar companies to focus on the Brazilian agricultural industry. For example, solar equipment distributor Genyx launched a new business unit in 2023, with a dedicated team for agriculture and a much more tailored approach to the sector.
“Companies want to sell by phone, by WhatsApp,” explains Bruno Catta Preta, Director of Institutional Relations at Genyx. “First we go to the rural union and approach the sellers of other equipment and inputs. Producers don’t want a PowerPoint in their email; they want to have a coffee and talk face to face. They are also not afraid of investments of 700,000 or 800,000 reais because they are used to spending money on expensive equipment such as pivots, trucks and harvesters.”
Catta Preta explained that irrigation pivots, for example, are expensive equipment that power companies often have difficulty keeping connected. In addition, the poor quality of the electricity transmission network that reaches rural properties through the utility grid is an incentive to adopt not only solar systems, but also batteries.
“Distribution lines in the rural segment are long and almost always single-wire,” explains Silvio Robusti, Product Marketing Manager at Chinese inverter manufacturer Growatt. “There are few connections and they are prone to large fluctuations, as they cover long distances and have a low density of consumers per kilometre. Maintenance is also more complex, the quality of electricity is worse than in large urban centres and considerable power disturbances are frequent. In some cases, these properties can be left in the dark for up to a day and a half.”
Growatt supplied inverters for a 24 kW off-grid solar project installed on a farm in the municipality of Tatuí, in the interior of the state of São Paulo. It enabled the drilling of an artesian well for access to drinking water, as well as the construction of two houses on the site.
“Initially, there was no basic infrastructure such as water and electricity, which made it unfeasible to build two houses for the family to live on the property,” explains Oscar Makoto Kojima, the off-grid engineer responsible for the project. “The client also considered connecting to the distribution company’s grid on site, but the cost would have been too high and the process too long. So they opted for an off-grid PV system integrated with batteries.” The installation features four Dyness 9.6 kWh lithium batteries and 54 JinkoSolar modules of 440 W each.
In the northeastern state of Bahia, the Dom Perignon farm of the cotton producer Sementec Group doubled its soybean harvest with a solar-powered irrigation system and reduced diesel consumption by 70%. The project was installed by Loop Energia and is supplied by eight artesian wells, seven central irrigation pivots and three storage ponds with a total capacity of 600 million liters. It is supplied by a 21 km, 34.5 kV private medium-voltage network.
The off-grid system includes 1.2 MW of solar power with more than 2,000 JA Solar bifacial modules of 545 W each. It also has nine PHB inverters and five diesel generators, three of 700 kW each and two of 550 kW each.
With more than 900 hectares of soybean plantations, the farm uses sunlight to increase productivity and reduce production costs, explains Luvânio Lopes, CEO of Loop Energia. Daily diesel consumption, from 4,000 liters, has been reduced to 1,000 liters, which represents a monthly saving of R$ 500,000. Smart grid technology has made it possible to increase soybean production from between 40 and 60 bags per hectare to more than 100 bags per hectare and harvest.
State Programs
In September 2023, the Ceará state government approved the Renda do Sol Project, which supports the implementation of photovoltaic systems for small farmers and low-income families throughout the state.
“In the future, we want the state of Ceará and the municipalities to buy the energy,” said Governor Elmano de Freitas. “This is very important for our development. To do this, we want to train these families and make it possible for them to obtain financing for their solar power plants.”
According to the project plan, two pilots will initially be established in the municipalities of Jaguaribara and Tamboril, where more than 160 families are engaged in the production of fruits, vegetables and dairy products. The expectation is that the monthly income of these families will increase by more than 50% with the additional funds generated by the program.
In December 2023, the Minas Gerais state government approved the Minas Gerais Rural Renewable Energy Program, which offers tax incentives to agricultural producers, including family farmers and agroecological users of renewable energy.
Brazilian states also offer specific financing lines for the sector. The Renewable Energy Program of Paraná (RenovaPR), for example, financed 462 small-scale solar generation projects in the first quarter of 2024 alone, at a cost of R$44.5 million.
The Sustainable Rural Development Paulista credit line released R$ 10.3 million to 109 producers from 52 municipalities in the state of São Paulo in 2023 for renewable energy activity. In 2022, R$ 13.6 million was made available to 115 producers from 69 municipalities.
Agrovoltaic pilots
A partnership between the electricity company Cemig, the Agricultural Research Company of Minas Gerais and the Telecommunications Research and Development Center will unite solar energy and agriculture on the same land, increasing the value of land use and allowing the development of innovative business models. The total investment is around 10.5 million reais and the research will be carried out over 30 months.
"We will conduct a complete assessment of the customized agrovoltaic system for Minas Gerais, involving technical, regulatory and economic-financial aspects from the perspectives of the rural producer, the energy distributor and the provider of the integrated system solution," said the commercial manager of the telecommunications research organization, Carlos Alberto Previdelli.
Sunfarming, a German company specialising in 1 MW systems that optimise the use of light for solar generation and plant cultivation, aims to develop 4 GW of agrovoltaic generation capacity in four Brazilian states. In Pará, it plans to develop up to 1 GW, starting with Belterra, where it can install up to 30 MW in combination with land reforestation. The company is also developing projects in Rio Grande do Sul, Rio de Janeiro and Ceará.
The Strategic Research Group on Solar Energy at the Federal University of Santa Catarina has installed a 100 kW agrovoltaic system on its campus with funding from the Spanish petrochemical company Repsol, through the R&D program of the National Agency of Oil and Gas of Brazil. The installation features photovoltaic panels developed in Brazil by the Chinese battery manufacturer BYD, with a view to their application in agribusiness and architecture. |
