InterSolar South America attracted over 9.000 visitors

Intersolar South America 2014, held in São Paulo, SP, on August 26 to 28 at the Expo Center Norte, exceeded the expectations of exhibitors and the participating public.   

In three days, 9,000 professionals attended Intersolar South America and the parallel event ENIE, Electrical Installations Exhibition & Conference. Through the parallelism of both exhibitions, the organizers could introduce solar to a new target group. Since the photovoltaic industry is still on a small level, it is no wonder that the workshop “Photovoltaics: Fundamentals and Applications” was packed to the very last seat. The construction of photovoltaic plants and their maintenance require skilled labor in this field, something rarely found in Brazil.

But the interest was not only for fundamentals. The high-level conference with 18 sessions from the “Latin American photovoltaic market” to “Application Technologies for Solar Heating” was packed. More than 500 attendees listened to innovative trends from abroad and about the current and future energy situation in Brazil.

Currently, there are only around 200 small to mid-sized distributed generation systems connected to the Brazilian electricity grid. This is still behind the expectations from ANEEL (national electricity agency) and EPE (national planning authority). While there are still barriers for the net-metering scheme through the taxation policy, solar specific auctions could accelerate the PV installations very soon.

“The outlook is positive”, says Markus Elsässer, CEO of Solar Promotion International “Brazil had its first successful solar auction in December 2013 in the State of Pernambuco, with a total of 122.8 MW contracted. This year, there are very high expectations with the first national solar auction that is expected to contract between 500 MW and 1,000 MW on 31st October 2014. A total pipeline of 10.8 GW of projects have filed to participate in the auction.”

Besides three days of photovoltaic and manufacturing topics the solar thermal market was also discussed on the last two days of the conference. The market for solar thermal products in Brazil is one of the top markets worldwide in terms of new installations and is growing very fast. In 2013 there was a 20 % growth leading to 1.4 mio. sqm newly installed collector area. The solar thermal sessions were organized by CB-Sol / DASOl-ABRAVA.

More than 71 well-known international and local speakers enriched the conference. Honored guests of the conference were, beside others, Alexandre Comin, Director of the Department of Industrial Competitiveness, Ministry of Development, Industry and Foreign Trade and Vice-Coordinator of the Renewable Energies Committee of Plano Brasil Maior, Eduardo Azevedo, Executive Secretary of Energy, Secretariat of Infrastructure of Pernambuco, Jürgen Beigel, Director for Renewable Energies and Energy Efficiency, German Society for International Cooperation (GIZ), and the Presidential Candidate Eduardo Jorge, from the Brazilian Green Party.

According to Klaus W Seilnacht, CEO of FMMI GmbH and one of the organizers of Intersolar South  America, this year's exhibition and conference met the needs to expand the discussions on the Brazilian energy matrix. "Brazil faces serious challenges with regard to its energy matrix, caused by the rising demand for energy due to the rising prosperity and the expected population growth, with, at the same time, issues with hydro power, caused by prolonged drought. The power supply and its extension cannot be ensured anymore. And a country this size, privileged to be bathed in sunshine almost all year round is able to enter the total solar energy at its headquarters", said the executive.

Intersolar South America in 2015 has already set date: September 01-03, at Expo Center Norte, in São Paulo, SP. For more information, please visit: www.intersolar.net.br

About Intersolar

With events spanning four continents, Intersolar is the world’s leading exhibition series for the solar industry and its partners. It unites people and companies from around the world with the aim of increasing the share of solar power in our energy supply.

Intersolar South America is the international exhibition and conference for the South American solar industry. It is held at the Expo Center Norte in São Paulo, Brazil

The event’s exhibition and conference both focus on the areas of photovoltaics, PV production technologies, energy storage and solar thermal technologies. Since its founding, Intersolar has become the most important industry platform for manufacturers, suppliers, distributors, service providers and partners of the solar industry.

With more than 20 years of experience, Intersolar has the unique ability to bring together members of the solar industry from across the world’s most influential markets. Intersolar exhibitions and conferences are held in Munich, San Francisco, Mumbai, Beijing and São Paulo. Starting in 2014, these global events will be complemented by the Intersolar Summits, which is totake place in emerging and growing markets worldwide.

For more information on Intersolar South America, please visit: www.intersolar.net.br

Organizers: Intersolar South America is organized by Solar Promotion International GmbH,

Pforzheim, Freiburg Management and Marketing International GmbH (FMMI) and Aranda Eventos &

Congressos Ltda, São Paulo (co-organizer).

Intersolar South America

Date: September 1-3, 2015

Expo Center Norte – São Paulo – SP

For more information on Intersolar go to: http://www.intersolar.net.br

Press Agency

M.FreeComunicação

Phone: 55 (11) 3171-2024

Paulo Tonon, Roberta Provatti e Marcio Freitas