Solar PV sector could create 99,000 jobs in Brazil

March 1 2016

Brazil’s Federal Government may rely on the solar photovoltaic (PV) sector to help minimize unemployment in the coming years, according to a statement by the Brazilian Association of Photovoltaic Solar Energy (ABSOLAR).Rodrigo Lopes Sauaia, executive president of ABSOLAR, says the installation of solar projects will result in a “significant volume” of new jobs.

So far, 3.3 GW of utility-scale solar PV plants are planned to be installed in Brazil by 2018, considering PV projects contracted via reserve energy auctions and projects that were made possible in the free market by the state of Pernambuco. For every MW of solar PV installed, between 20 and 30 new jobs (direct and indirect) will be created, ABSOLAR estimates. Thus, between 60,000 and 99,000 new job opportunities will be created with the development of the Brazilian solar energy market.

Additional jobs through distributed solar power generation

ABSOLAR notes that an even greater number of jobs could be generated by the solar energy segment since the calculation ignores the potential for solar jobs to be created with the advancement of distributed generation (DG). According to data from the National Electric Energy Agency, the DG market closed 2015 with 1,731 PV systems or 16.5 MW of installed capacity, compared to 424 DG PV installations in 2014 – an increase of 308%. A larger number of small companies will need skilled teams for PV installations, and training of professionals for the PV industry is one of the association’s priorities in 2016, says Sauaia. According to the Brazilian Electricity Regulatory Agency (Aneel), solar power today represents 0.02% of the Brazilian energy mix. The Nation’s Ten-Year Energy Plan estimates that it will reach 3.3% of the mix or 7 GW of installed capacity in 2024. In December 2015 the Ministry of Mines and Energy launched the Development Program for Distributed Generation. The ProGD aims at stimulating USD 25 billion (BRL 100 billion) in investments by 2030.

source Solar Server

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