Brazil to use COP27 to attract investment in green energy
Brazil’s participation in the United Nations Conference of the Parties on Climate Change—COP27—starts this Tuesday. The country should take the opportunity to show the world its potential for generating clean and cheap energy.
Held in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt, COP27 kicked off Sunday (Nov. 6) and runs until November 18, gathering government officials and representatives from society to discuss ways to tackle climate change.
The debates mainly concern the new report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) on the vulnerabilities, capacities, and limits facing the world and society in adapting to climate change.
Brazil’s participation
According to Environment Minister Joaquim Leite, who spoke in an interview to public radio broadcast A Voz do Brasil, the meeting is a good opportunity to lure international investors willing to explore this potential.
“Due to its natural and economic characteristics, Brazil has great potential in this sector,” said the minister. The nation’s top objective at COP27, he said, will be to “bring the Brazil of green energy to them,” unveiling “climate finance and accelerating green economy side by side with the private sector.” “What we want is for the private enterprise to step up a new green economy, neutral in emissions by 2050,” he said.
During the interview, Leite said that Brazil’s energy potential for on-shore power generation with wind, solar, and biomass plants is 100 GW.
“To understand the magnitude of this potential, Brazil currently produces 180 GW. It is a significant volume of renewable and clean energy we can turn into green hydrogen and green ammonia for export,” the minister said.
Fifty times Itaipu
The minister also talked about off-shore wind turbines. “There is potential for 700 GW—the equivalent of 50 Itaipu power plants. Brazil is the country of green energy and should be able to supply green energy to the whole world,” he argued. The Itaipu hydroelectric power plant is located in southern Brazil and was built in partnership with Paraguay.
Benefits for the country could involve an entire supply chain and factories that may take advantage of this “green and cheap” energy after installing themselves in Brazil. “This is what’s so unique about Brazil, and this will be the COP of green energy in Brazil,” he said, adding that, like wind and solar energy, the energy generated from biomass, when generated from waste—in both urban areas and in the country—is also considered renewable.
According to the Ministry of Environment, the Brazilian energy matrix stands out with a renewable rate of 84 percent, compared to 27 percent of the world average. The solar and wind networks set production records in 2022—14 GW and 22 GW respectively. “Together, these two sources are sufficient to supply clean energy to over 40 million Brazilians,” the ministry declares on its website.
Management of offshore areas
Joaquim Leite said that, in view of the high volume of applications for the installation of wind farms at sea, the government has worked to facilitate the permits by creating an offshore management platform. The move is expected to further attract international investment in the country.
“At [Brazil’s environment protection authority] Ibama, we already have approximately 169 GW requested for the installation of wind farms at sea. This volume of requests demands a unified platform, as Ibama is not the only agency tasked with granting permission. There are several other agencies—in fishing and defense, for instance. So we needed to speed up licensing for these areas. We have drafted an inter-ministerial regulation to build a digital structure to speed up area concession,” the minister noted.
The installation can be done cheaply in shallow areas, common in the Northeast 20 or 30 kilometers away from the coast. “We’ll be able to install windmill platforms at sea at a distance that doesn’t harm tourism. These platforms should also improve the situation of sea fauna. The Northeast doesn’t have abundant marine fauna because there’s no protection from the shade, and these structures will bring shade to the sea, increasing marine fauna.”
Affordable maintenance
In addition to reliable wind, Brazil’s Northeast region boasts another favorable feature for this type of enterprise: the low occurrence of storms, which, according to the minister, cheapens equipment maintenance costs, making this type of enterprise even more attractive.
“The world is keeping an eye on this opportunity because Brazil is a country with a vast coastal area with no storms, so you install the wind turbine convinced it will have cheaper maintenance than elsewhere—like the North Sea, in Europe, where storms are constant. Brazil probably has the cheapest cost for offshore wind energy,” the minister argued.
Minister Leite also said that the investment estimated by a consulting firm to explore the potential of 700 GW of wind energy in the Brazilian sea is BRL 1 trillion.
“All this will generate revenue, economic activity, and cheap energy, at a time when the world is worried about energy security. So companies will probably move to Brazil, because there’s plenty of clean energy here, besides the fact that we count on the security of a plural energy matrix. Here they will have the chance to build plants with the guarantee energy will never be lacking—clean energy,” he said when describing the topics to be focused on by the Brazilian delegation at COP27.
