Chinese solar equipment to light up Rio 2016 Olympics

MORE OPPORTUNITIES

Brazil's geological features, energy structures, and recent water crisis also provide new opportunities to solar power.

Brazil's southeast region, where most of the country's hydroelectric power plants are located, is suffering from a dry season. As the country depends largely on hydropower, which accounts for 70 percent of its total electricity generation capacity, a water crisis stimulates more demand from other recourses.

On the other hand, Brazil also enjoys sufficient sunshine, huge demand for electricity and a tradition of using clean energies, making it an attractive market for China's solar equipment manufacturers, which are producing over 60 percent solar panels in the world.

According to a report by GTM Research, a market analysis institute on green energy based in Boston, U.S., the Latin American region installed 625 MW of solar photovoltaics (PV) in 2014, a 370 percent increase in annual growth over 2013, led by Brazil, Chile and Mexico.

Yingli is not the only Chinese company targeting the green energy potential of the biggest economy in Latin American.

BYD, China's electric vehicle and solar panel manufacturer, has entered this market with its electric vehicles. It will open its first factory in Brazil this year, to produce batteries, solar panels and assemble electric buses with imported parts.

Several Brazilian cities have been testing BYD's electric buses. So when its first factory is operational in the second half of 2015, it will already have customers.

"The negotiations with Rio are advanced for a relatively large fleet, to attend to a request of the city government, which wants to reduce carbon emissions, make improvements for the Olympic Games," said Adalberto Maluf Filho, BYD's director of Marketing and Governmental Affairs for Brazil. "We expect to be able to provide a large fleet by early 2016, in time for the Olympic Games."