According to PV InfoLink, Brazil imported approximately 10.1 GW of PV modules between January and May. This capacity, worth $1.2 billion, exceeds the $1.13 billion import quota set by Brazilian authorities for a 9.6% import duty exemption on solar panels from January to June 2024.
The next round of duty-free import quotas is set at $1.014 billion from July 2024 to June 2025 and could be exhausted quickly. The government will impose taxes if the import limit is exceeded, and higher shipping costs can also drive up solar panel prices.
“The container costs about $2,500 to $2,300, and recently increased to $9,300,” said Camilla Nascimento, commercial director of WIN Distribuidora. pv magazine.
Nascimento added that there is little room to negotiate on transportation, which is carried out in a specific 40-foot container model. “We are ‘hostage’ to the use of this kind of modality. And the ships are very overloaded because of the whole international scenario, the issue of wars has changed international trade and the increase in consumption of Chinese products in Brazil and the rest of the world has increased demand.”
Given the US dollar’s 15% appreciation against the Brazilian real this year and rising freight costs, an increase in PV system costs is expected in the second half of the year, the executive said.
Brazilian consultancy Greener estimates that 60% to 70% of this year’s imported volume was destined for the distributed PV market. The dollar and shipping costs are impacting PV system prices, but the arrival of cheap modules due to China’s high production capacity will mitigate these impacts in the coming months, the report said.
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