French renewable energy company Voltalia has released a plan to develop PV cluster in the Arinos, a municipality in the southwestern Brazilian state of Minas Gerais. The generation capacity of this new PV cluster is set above 1.5GW. Voltalia has already established two renewable energy clusters in the country: Serra Branca in Rio Grande do Norte and Canudos in Bahia. Both projects have a generation capacity that exceeds 1GW. The plan for the Arinos PV cluster was first reported by other renewable energy news websites.
Brazilian PV Market Is Expected to Possess Tremendous Potential
Voltalia will be developing the Arinos PV cluster with other entities. For instance, it has already signed an agreement with CTG Brazil. Upon approval, CTG Brazil will acquire a significant portion of the PV cluster from Voltalia once the entire project is completed. As a “cluster”, the project will comprise multiple generation sites that will later be transferred to third parties. However, Voltalia will retain some sites as well. Commenting on the Arinos PV cluster, Voltalia said the project of this scale allows for the pooling of resources with respect to supporting infrastructure, transmission network, and O&M. This is advantageous especially for the generation sites that will remain in Voltalia’s control.
Voltalia also said it considers the employment of a local workforce and environmental effects when developing PV clusters in Brazil. The company carefully chooses the best sites for the deployment of PV systems and engages in every phase of project development. It also boasts that about half of its projects have been sold off.
Voltalia currently controls 688MW of PV and wind generation assets in the 2.4GW Serra Branca cluster. The company will be adding 517MW of PV generation assets into that cluster. Moreover, Voltalia’s project pipeline in Brazil has reached around 5GW. Sebastien Clerc, CEO of Voltalia, said that the initiation of the Arinos cluster is another confirmation of his company’s ability to implement mega projects as both an energy supplier and a service provider. Clerc also pointed out that for almost a decade Voltalia has been successful in its core mission to set up large PV and wind power projects, thereby making renewable energy available to the largest number of end users.
Besides solar PV and wind power, Voltalia is also involved in hydropower, biomass, and energy storage. Currently, its generation capacity that is in operation or under construction totals more than 2GW, and its projects that are under development totals more than 11GW.
Also, in related news, Voltalia formally broke ground on the Karavasta PV project in Albania on July 1. With a generation capacity of 140MW, the Karavasta PV project is the largest of its kind in the country to date and scheduled to be commissioned in the second half of 2023.