According to research and consulting company GlobalData, in 2018 Brazil will overtake the US as the world’s leader in terms of biopower capacity. In 2013, Brazil had 11.5 GW and the US had 15.4 GW of installed bioenergy capacity. In 2018 these will have risen to 17.1 GW for Brazil and 16.5 GW for the US market, according to GlobalData. 

This is due to Brazil’s increasing pace of capacity addition, fuelled by its government, explains GlobalData analyst Harshavardhan Reddy Nagatham: “The nascent Brazilian market is being driven by the government, which has made it necessary for local utility service providers to obtain at least 2 GW of installed biomass capacity through auctions annually, for ten years from 2007.” In 2006, Brazil still had less than 4 GW of installations while a big part of the US’s biopower capacity had already been installed (12.8 GW) with only small additions following afterwards.

As Nagatham points out, it is possible that due to increased deforestation, raw materials could be scarce, but that a rise in sugarcane plantations will most likely compensate for this. “The abundance of sugarcane in Brazil makes the installation of biomass technology a very viable option for power generation”, he elaborates, “biomass projects will also generate electricity from both sugarcane waste and non-food energy crops, such as eucalyptus and pine trees.”

Nagatham concludes the biggest challenge for biopower to be other renewable energies such as hydropower and wind energy and natural gas, since the Brazilian Development Bank would show a preference towards those, when it comes to financing renewable projects.

Nevertheless, GlobalData’s study expects biopower in Brazil to surge up to 25.2 GW in 2025.

You can order the full study here: Global Biopower Market — Capacity, Generation, Market Size, Major Feedstock, Regulations, and Key Country Analysis to 2025

Tanja Peschel