Atlas and Dow Execute Large-Scale Solar PPA in Brazil

Atlas Renewable Energy along with the American material science firm Dow has announced the signing of a large-scale solar energy contract in Brazil.

Atlas Renewable Energy, a leading renewable energy company in Latin America, along with the American material science multinational company Dow has announced the signing of a large-scale solar energy contract in Brazil.

The clean energy supply will be through the Jacaranda photovoltaic solar plant, located in Juazeiro, the State of Bahía, and is expected to supply over 440 GWh of solar electricity per year that will mostly be used to serve Dow under a 15-year duration contract, with off-take starting in the first half of 2021.

The Jacaranda solar plant will have an installed capacity of 187 MWp with more than 450,000 modules. The plant will generate enough energy to supply a sizeable part of Dow’s Aratu Site’s energy needs.

According to the average consumption of a Brazilian family, the amount of energy generated will be equivalent to supply enough power to a city of +750,000 inhabitants. Furthermore, the plant will avoid an approximate of 35,000 metric tons of CO2 emissions per year based on the GHG (Green House Gases) Protocol, a methodology developed by the World Resources Institute which follows the methods used by the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) and it is aligned with Dow’s Global Emissions Inventory. This amount of avoided CO2 emission could be compared to removing 36,800 vehicles from the streets of São Paulo.

This contract to secure renewable power capacity contributes to achieving one of Dow’s 2025 Sustainability Goals, a commitment to obtain 750 MW of its power demand from renewable sources by 2025. The firm also recently announced additional Carbon Reduction Goals, which aim to reduce Dow’s net annual emissions by 15 percent from 2020 to 2030, representing a reduction of 5 million tons of CO2 in the next ten years and another significant step toward reaching carbon neutrality by 2050.

Currently, Dow is the number one user of clean energy in the chemical industry and among the top 25 global corporations for renewable power use (BNEF ranking), with contracts for wind, solar, hydro, biomass and landfill gas.

The solar plant will host bi-facial module technology and will be neighbouring the Eng. Manoel de Andrade solar plant and will make use of its digital substation, a breakthrough innovation, first-of-its-kind in the Brazilian solar industry, introduced by Atlas Renewable Energy in 2019.

“Dow is pleased to partner with leading clean power producers like Atlas Renewable Energy as we work to reduce our emission intensity and support projects that add greater renewable contribution and diversity to the grid/matrix,” said Claudia Schaeffer, Dow’s global business director for Energy & Climate Change. “In addition to our passion for a lower carbon future, our companies share a commitment to ESG (Environmental Social and Governance) principles that encourage economic growth and social development for the communities where we operate.”