Brazil has enormous solar power generation potential – scientists recently estimated that the country could install 337.83 GW of solar, or almost twice the country’s total installed renewable capacity from all sources as of 2022.
The solar sector in Brazil has only emerged in the last few years, but it is now growing fast, with capacity increasing fivefold from 2019 to 2022 alone, to 24 GW. IDB Invest, the private-sector arm of the Inter American Development Bank Group, and CIF’s Clean Technology Fund (CTF) are key partners in that growth, and they have made it a priority to create inclusive opportunities.
Globally, women make up two-fifths of the solar photovoltaics (PV) workforce, but they are disproportionately employed in administrative jobs, while their share of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) positions is just 32 percent, and they hold only 13 percent of senior management posts.
In Brazil, a study found only 4.8 percent of women followed STEM careers in 2019, compared with 8.4 percent of men, and women working in the sector reported encountering significant gender biases and outright discrimination, and struggling to balance work and family life. If Brazil wants to fully realize its potential for growth and innovation in the renewable energy sector, the study concluded, expanding gender and racial diversity is key.
In two major solar projects in Brazil, IDB Invest and CIF have successfully used incentives built into blended finance solutions to achieve greater gender equality, diversity, and ethnic inclusion.
IDB Invest has been using performance-based incentives since 2014 to encourage companies to train, hire, and promote women in the renewable energy sector. Even today, many large, high-impact solar projects are considered too risky to be viable with commercial finance alone, so blended finance – the targeted use of concessional funding from donors or third parties alongside IDB Invest’s own capital and/or commercial finance from other investors – can make all the difference.
When using blended finance, IDB Invest has enabled borrowers to lower their interest rate if they achieve specific gender equality, diversity, and ethnic inclusion outcomes. The more ambitious the project’s Gender Action Plan and related investments, the more generous the incentives. The loan documents commit the borrower to specific outcomes that must be demonstrated at different stages of the project, or else the interest rate is not reduced.
In 2020, IDB Invest arranged up to US$68.7 million in financing for the 157 MWac New Juazeiro Bifacial Solar Power Project in Bahia, led by Atlas Renewable Energy, of which US$15 million was provided jointly by CTF and the Canadian Climate Fund for Private Sector in the Americas (C2F) in concessional terms.
The project was novel in multiple ways: it was only the second solar project in Brazil to use bifacial PV, which generates power on both sides of the panels and is thus more efficient; it was also one of the first utility-scale solar PV projects in Brazil with a corporate power purchase agreement (PPA), with Dow Brazil as the off-taker; and it explicitly incentivized the inclusion of Afro-descendant women and men in the workforce.
Also in 2020, IDB Invest arranged a total of US$152.8 million in financing for the 297 MWac Casablanca Bifacial Solar PV project in Minas Gerais which followed the same model as New Juazeiro, this time with the mining company Anglo Ferro as the PPA off-taker. CTF and the C2F had a joint participation of up to US$10 million in concessional financing.
For both projects, Atlas Renewable Energy committed to ambitious outreach, training, and hiring goals, almost all of which have been met. Over 10 percent of the workers who built the Juazeiro plant were women, for instance, and almost two-thirds of women workers are Afro-descendant. In Casablanca, 16 percent of the construction workers were women, and over 200 women were trained in construction and electrical-related programs; Atlas has also provided child care assistance for almost 150 women employees.
The company has gathered testimonials from training program participants, who beam with newly gained confidence.
“We need someone to believe in us, so that we may start believing, and that is what this program did,” said Larissa Santos De Souza, a program alumna.
Raquel Azevedo, Atlas’ social innovation coordinator for Latin America, said it takes “a lot of willpower” and effective methods to generate “real opportunities for women.” When women can given a chance to challenge themselves and learn a new profession, she said, “the result is what we see here today: a group of women who are empowered, excited, enthusiastic, who want to change their lives, who want to change their journey, and learn even more.”
Watch a short video on gender inclusion from Atlas Renewable Energy
Watch video testimonials from program participants (in Portuguese, no subtitles)