Brazil greenlights co-located solar and storage for the first time

Brazil’s National Electric Energy Agency (Aneel) has signed the country’s first-ever authorization for a co-located battery energy storage system (BESS) tied to a solar generation facility, marking a significant regulatory milestone for the Brazilian energy storage market.

The system is linked to the Sol de Brotas 7 photovoltaic plant, owned by Statkraft, in the municipality of Uibaí, Bahia. The Sol de Brotas complex is also authorized to share transmission infrastructure with the Ventos de Santa Eugênia wind complex.

The lithium-ion BESS has a nominal capacity of 5 MWh and a total installed power output of 1.25 MW. The conversion system is rated at 2.3 MW, with an inverter output voltage of 0.60 kV, physically integrated into the solar plant’s existing infrastructure. By sharing grid connection facilities with the host generation asset, the system will store surplus energy and dispatch it to the grid on demand.

The colocated storage system may consume energy from both the Sol de Brotas 7 photovoltaic plant itself and the grid to which it is connected, but consumption through direct connection to other generating plants in the complex is prohibited. The storage system will operate by sharing the plant’s metering and billing systems, under the terms applicable to colocated storage systems.

“Batteries offer a medium- and short-term solution to a problem that will intensify over time. The expansion already signals very vigorous growth in renewables in Brazil in the coming years, so we need a regulatory framework that provides security for investors and also allows the development of a supply chain that enables the electrical system to continue delivering good performance results,” said the Director-General of Aneel, Sandoval Feitosa, during the authorization signing ceremony.

The event was attended by the director of Aneel, Agnes da Costa, the agency’s technical team, and representatives from the Brazilian Photovoltaic Solar Energy Association (Absolar), the Brazilian Wind Energy Association (Abeeólica), and the Brazilian Association of Energy Storage Solutions (Absae).

In October 2025, Aneel published specific guidelines for entrepreneurs interested in installing co-located storage systems in already licensed generating plants.

From pv magazine Brazil.