Enel Green Power SpA, a unit of Italy’s largest utility, won contracts to sell power from three solar farms in Brazil, making it the country’s biggest supplier of electricity generated from sunlight.
The company will invest $600 million to build the 103-megawatt Horizonte MP project with 103 megawatts of capacity, the 158-megawatt Lapa solar farm and the 292-megawatt Nova Olinda facility, the Rome-based company said Monday in a statement on its website. The projects will make Enel the biggest solar company in Brazil based on planned and existing capacity, according to the statement.
The contracts were awarded to the company in an energy auction last week. The three project in Brazil’s northeastern states of Bahia and Piaui will be completed by 2017.
Enel Green Power also said Monday it has connected to the grid the Fontes Solar I and II projects, with total combined capacity of 11 megawatts. They were built alongside the Fontes dos Ventos wind farm, and the company said the facility in the state of Pernambuco is Brazil’s first hybrid wind-solar power plant.