Brazil Solar Energy Below Grid Electricity

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According to Brazil’s national energy agency, Empresa de Pesquisa Energetica, electricity from home solar panels is now cheaper than electricity from 10 of the country’s electricity providers.

“Electricity from a typical 5 kilowatt system costs about 602 reais ($299) a megawatt-hour, EPE said today in a report,” Bloomberg reports. “Distributors charge 240 reais to 709 reais for residential power.”

And the price for solar panels is even lower with available government support! “Costs for solar energy fall to 586 reais a megawatt-hour if homeowners use a government credit program called Proesco to buy panels.”

Unfortunately, I can’t read the report, as it is in Portuguese. But I’m sure the assumption regarding lifespan of the solar panels underestimates their actual lifespan. 30 years should be the minimum lifespan used these days, but I’ve never seen anyone use even that many, and most seem to use 20 years. In other words, the cost of solar is probably even much cheaper than above in reality.

Good news for those going solar and for those looking to go solar in Brazil.

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Image Credit: brazil solar panels via EPE report

Zachary Shahan (2295 Posts)

I'm the director of CleanTechnica, the most popular clean energy website in the world, and Planetsave, a leading green and science news site. I've been covering green news of various sorts since 2008, and I've been especially focused on solar energy, electric vehicles, bicycling, and wind energy for the past few years. You can also find my work on Scientific American, Reuters, Think Progress, GE's ecomagination site, several sites in the Important Media network, & many other places. To connect on some of your favorite social networks, go to zacharyshahan.com or click on some of the links below.


  • jburt56

    This is an important trend–solar may be more affordable sooner in countries with underdeveloped grids.  Watch India’s solar program.

  • Bob_Wallace

    Who makes those great big flexible panels in the picture?

    And idea of $/watt and efficiency?

    • Ross

      Not an exact answer to that but here’s another quote

      “Spurred by persistent oversupply of photovoltaic modules, or by the economic crisis that has particularly affecting European countries, the price reduction of crystalline silicon modules in “spot” market (wholesale) reached between January and November 2011, 42% and 31% in China Germany. Also, the thin-film technology (TF) is showing falling prices, and reached € 0.78 / W p (Figure 21)”

    • http://cleantechnica.com/ Zachary Shahan

      Not sure. Caption (page 5) was: Fig. 4. Células de filme fino 
      Fonte: Deltaenergie maybe this company (see a lot of deltaenergie sites on a google search): http://www.deltaenergie.it/

  • Edgar
  • Ronald Brak

    The below parity cost of point of use solar combined with Brazil’s huge hydro electric capacity means it shoouldn’t be long before Brazil’s electricity sector is more or less entirely renewable.  It also removes pressure to construct new dams.

  • Ross

    Here’s a quote courtesy of the aforementioned translation.

    “Considering, however, the trend in costs and prices of solar modules and electricity rates in some markets, it is estimated that parity pricing in the residential sector Europe can be achieved in the second half of this decade in Italy, France, Germany, Spain and the United Kingdom”
    electricity rates in some markets, it is estimated that parity pricing in the residential sector
    Europe can be achieved in the second half of this decade in Italy, France, GermanSpain and the United Ki

  • Ross

    Uploading the PDF file to translate.google.com produces a more or less intelligible translation. 

    • http://cleantechnica.com/ Zachary Shahan

      thanks. didn’t realize i could upload PDFs

  • LoganstoneRugburn59