How Brazil’s NeoSolar plans to grow sales by up to 50%

Brazilian solar power equipment provider NeoSolar expects to grow sales between 30% and 50% next year, the company’s founding partner Raphael Pintão told BNamericas. 

The projection considers all the group's business units, including off grid, hybrid systems, distributed generation, and electric vehicles through NeoCharge. 

“The beginning of the year tends to be slower with the country's economy slowing down, but our markets, all of them, have always been growing much faster than the economy as a whole,” said Pintão (pictured). 

Among the niches eyed by NeoSolar is the agribusiness sector, where it expects to at least double sales in 2023, according to the executive.

Agribusiness made up 27.4% of Brazil’s GDP in 2021, according to information from the Center for Advanced Studies in Applied Economics (Cepea) at University of São Paulo, and the Brazilian Agriculture and Livestock Confederation (CNA).

Besides distributed generation, Neosolar has seen a strong increase in demand for solutions such as solar pumps that enable irrigation or the feeding of animals in places previously inaccessible.

“The agribusiness sector in Brazil is very strong in terms of adopting new technologies in general, and in the case of the solar market it wouldn’t be any different. We plan to increase the portfolio of solutions dedicated to this sector,” said Pintão. 

In 2020, agriculture and cattle ranching was Brazil’s third largest sector in terms of solar power usage, with more than 29,000 systems installed. Last year, that number jumped to 61,000, according to local PV solar power association Absolar.

To maintain a pace of high growth, Neosolar is constantly looking at processes and technologies that allows for enhanced production, cost reduction and increased sustainability, said Pintão. 

"The use of solar energy is more common in homes and companies, but it appears in several ways in agribusiness: use of equipment for refrigeration, irrigation, drying of crops, nurseries in greenhouses or animal drinking fountains. Another very important option is when it brings energy to points on the property that are far from the power grid," said NeoSolar consultant, Alex Zuboski, in a statement. 

Equipment such as load controllers, inverters and batteries make implementation more expensive, but solar power offers a long-term advantage compared to traditional systems in the form of higher efficiency, reduced maintenance costs and lower electricity bills, said Zuboski. 

Also on the company’s radar are energy storage solutions with lithium batteries, whose sales “are likely to accelerate in the coming years,” Pintão added.