New renewable energy capacity installed in Brazil fell 27% from 2024 to 2025, a retreat that dragged down clean energy expansion across Latin America for the first time in more than a decade. The figures come from a report by BloombergNEF (BNEF), Bloomberg's energy research unit, obtained exclusively by the newspaper Folha de S.Paulo.
Brazil remains the regional leader in absolute terms, adding 17 GW in 2025, but that is well below the 24 GW installed the year before. Counting wind, solar and battery systems together, Latin American countries added 26 GW last year, a 23% drop from the 34 GW of the previous cycle. For 2030, BNEF projects only 13 GW of new annual installations in Brazil, suggesting the country will not return to its 2024 pace this decade.
The main driver is oversupply. During hours of strong sun or wind, clean generation exceeds demand and the ONS, Brazil's national grid operator, must order plants to shut down to keep the grid stable, a practice known as curtailment. In June, the operator activated an unprecedented emergency plan of forced cuts. According to Vinicius Nunes, a BNEF analyst in São Paulo, Brazil lost on average 26% of its solar generation and 19% of its wind generation in 2025 to these interruptions, an estimated loss of R$ 7 billion (about US$ 1.3 billion), according to figures reported by Bloomberg.
The decline spans every segment. New wind projects totaled 2 GW in 2025, half the 4 GW of 2024, and BNEF forecasts only 0.4 GW for 2027. Large solar plants, such as those installed in Janaúba, in the north of Minas Gerais state, added 3 GW last year, down from 7 GW in 2024. Small rooftop photovoltaic systems slipped from 13 GW to 12 GW, and the firm projects further declines in coming years as incentives are cut.
Batteries take center stage
"Brazil needs to move faster on regulation and on price signals, so the market reacts and adapts the system quickly," Rafael Rabioglio, BloombergNEF's head for Latin America, told Folha. He says companies in the sector were frustrated that the federal government's capacity reserve auction, held in March, came before the battery auction, now expected in December.
"We see some companies redirecting their efforts to the battery auction, which is the big demand of the moment. Discussions of purely wind or solar generation projects, without any storage, have become increasingly rare," Rabioglio says. The report projects that storage systems will surpass 1 GW in Brazil in 2028, driven first by commercial, industrial and residential projects on the consumer side. The government hopes the first battery auction will secure 2 GW of capacity, and companies such as Tesla, Petrobras and Huawei have already shown interest, according to Bloomberg reporting published by InfoMoney.
The contrast with neighbors is stark. Chile faced the same curtailment problem and answered with rapid battery expansion. Mexico, which added only 1.1 GW of wind and solar in 2025, is expected to install 8.5 GW in 2030, spurred by President Claudia Sheinbaum's reform to boost renewable investment. Peru hit a record for new installations in 2025, Argentina awarded 667 MW in its first storage auction and solar power keeps growing in Colombia.
For Bárbara Rubim, chair of the board of Absolar, Brazil's photovoltaic solar industry association, the numbers confirm what the sector has been warning about.
"Brazil has not lost sun, demand or technological competitiveness. It has lost predictability. This is a problem of economic efficiency and energy security: installing new generation is not enough if the country cannot transport, store and use that energy when it is needed."
Rubim notes that the challenge grows with the arrival of data centers, green hydrogen projects, new energy-intensive industries and transport electrification, all of which depend on a system able to absorb the energy Brazil already knows how to produce. BNEF expects only a gradual recovery in investment toward the end of the decade.