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posted by Fnord666 on Saturday November 11 2017, @05:19AM   Printer-friendly
from the a-brighter-future dept.

Brazil has lagged far behind in the shift to solar power, but the continent's biggest facility now being built in the south-east aims to give the country its place in the sun.

The plant in Pirapora, in the south-eastern state of Minas Gerais, has 1.2 million solar panels, covering the equivalent of more than 1,200 soccer fields.

It first began producing power in September, with the second of three phases in the project going online this Thursday.

The whole thing, operated by French energy giant EDF Energies Nouvelles, should be operational before the second quarter of 2018, boasting a capacity of 400 megawatts. That's enough to meet the annual demand of 420,000 households.

Brazil is already achieved energy independence, so projects like this will help cement that.


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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Saturday November 11 2017, @07:42AM (5 children)

    by MichaelDavidCrawford (2339) Subscriber Badge <mdcrawford@gmail.com> on Saturday November 11 2017, @07:42AM (#595524) Homepage Journal

    If you're going to build such a big solar collector, surely it must be far cheaper to build a reflector array that boils water to drive steam turbines.

    --
    Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
    • (Score: 3, Informative) by MostCynical on Saturday November 11 2017, @08:36AM

      by MostCynical (2589) on Saturday November 11 2017, @08:36AM (#595535) Journal

      Very large, narrow, flat, rectangular site.

      Canadian Partner company specializes in manufacturing tracking solar panels.

      So the technology suits the site and the investing companies.

      http://translate.google.com.au/translate?hl=en&sl=fr&u=https://www.edf-energies-nouvelles.com/country/brazil/&prev=search [google.com.au]

      --
      "I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
    • (Score: 2) by lx on Saturday November 11 2017, @09:46AM

      by lx (1915) on Saturday November 11 2017, @09:46AM (#595539)

      This is Brazil... where the nuts come from.

    • (Score: 2) by t-3 on Saturday November 11 2017, @02:43PM

      by t-3 (4907) on Saturday November 11 2017, @02:43PM (#595587)

      A hybrid approach, liquid cooling the panels for greater efficiency and using the heat to drive turbines would be interesting.

    • (Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 11 2017, @04:16PM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 11 2017, @04:16PM (#595621)

      If you're going to build such a big solar collector, surely it must be far cheaper to build a reflector array that boils water to drive steam turbines.

      10 years ago called, they want their ideas back. Seriously, solar panels are now cheap enough that reflector arrays are more expensive to build.

      https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/71/Price_history_of_silicon_PV_cells_since_1977.svg [wikimedia.org]

      See that price slide? The only problem with PV panels now is they have no storage. But they are *now* already by far the cheapest source of power. Wind is right there with them. And only then do you get other sources.

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