Statkraft opens 274-MWp Bahia solar plants, prepares next commissioning phase

• Statkraft inaugurated two solar plants totaling 274 MWp in Bahia, Brazil, and is preparing a third for commissioning, expanding its Latin American footprint.

Norway’s state-owned Statkraft has cut the ribbon on two utility-scale solar plants in Brazil’s Bahia state with a combined 274 MWp and says a further unit is moving through final checks toward commissioning. The milestone pushes more daytime capacity into one of Brazil’s sunniest hubs and underlines Statkraft’s deepening presence in Latin America’s most dynamic renewables market.

Engineering follows a lender-friendly template tailored to Northeast Brazil’s irradiance and heat. High-efficiency, often bifacial modules ride single-axis trackers to stretch production into shoulder hours. DC/AC ratios favor robust annual yield rather than headline peaks, while plant controllers deliver reactive power, ramp-rate compliance, and low/high-voltage ride-through per Brazilian grid codes. Unified SCADA with string-level telemetry supports predictive maintenance—thermal scans, IV-curve tracing, and targeted cleaning—adding basis points of availability that compound over decades.

Commercially, Statkraft blends long-term offtake with calibrated merchant exposure to capture Brazil’s daytime spreads. Siting near strong substations helps reduce curtailment and interconnection risk; standardized cable routing, foundations, and pre-fabricated substation blocks compress construction schedules across multi-site portfolios. While the commissioned units are solar-only, layouts typically preserve pad space and transformer headroom for future two-to-four-hour batteries, creating options to shift energy into evening peaks and provide fast frequency response as market rules evolve.

For Bahia communities, the projects mean jobs during build, ongoing technical roles post-COD, and steady municipal revenues. Environmental plans—traffic and dust controls, storm-water management sized for intense rain, low-glare module placement, and native landscaping—are baked into permits, alongside end-of-life recycling pathways for modules and balance-of-plant components.

With the third plant approaching commissioning, focus turns to first-year stabilization: inverter set-point tuning, soiling baselines that inform cleaning cycles, and early performance testing against P50 expectations. Portfolio-level procurement of spares and a roaming service model should keep uptime high across the Bahia fleet.

Bottom line: Statkraft is converting a Brazilian pipeline into electrons on the wire—standardized builds, disciplined interconnection, and near-term optionality for storage that future-proofs the portfolio as the grid’s flexibility needs grow.