Atlas Renewable Energy has signed a 15-year solar power deal with cement maker Votorantim Cimentos. Leap records the contract at 100 MW. The same record says 470 MWp of the project will be dedicated to the cement maker. Both numbers describe the same agreement, and the gap between them is the most interesting thing about it.
Key takeaways
- Atlas Renewable Energy signed a 15-year PPA with Votorantim Cimentos, announced on 15 January 2024, for 100 MW of solar power from the Luiz Carlos solar project in Brazil.
- The Luiz Carlos solar project in Paracatu, Minas Gerais, will have an installed capacity of 787 MWp, of which 470 MWp is allocated to Votorantim Cimentos.
- The Atlas PPA will supply about one third of Votorantim Cimentos' energy consumption in Brazil and help the cement maker reach 75 percent renewable energy consumption in the country.
- Power from Atlas Renewable Energy's Luiz Carlos project will serve Votorantim Cimentos' production units in the South, Southeast and Center-West regions of Brazil.
- Construction of the 787 MWp Luiz Carlos solar project was anticipated to begin by the second quarter of 2025.
What has Votorantim Cimentos actually signed?
It has signed a long-term offtake for a project that did not yet exist. A PPA, or power purchase agreement, is a contract under which a buyer commits to take a generator's output for a set period. Here the generator is Luiz Carlos, a solar complex Atlas plans to build in Paracatu, in Minas Gerais. Paracatu already hosts other Atlas solar projects, so the site is familiar ground for the developer.
The contract is offsite. The panels will sit in one state and the power will feed cement plants spread across three regions of the country. That is possible because Brazil's grid lets large consumers buy power from a distant plant and have it delivered through the network. For a manufacturer with many factories, one large remote solar farm can stand in for many small rooftop systems.
The scale relative to the buyer is the point. The contract covers about a third of Votorantim Cimentos' Brazilian energy use. This is not a token green purchase. It is a structural change to how a heavy industrial company sources its power.
Why does the record say both 100 MW and 470 MWp?
Because the two numbers measure different things, and the record does not reconcile them. Leap's structured field records 100 MW of capacity offtaken. The narrative states that 470 MWp of the project's 787 MWp is allocated to Votorantim Cimentos.
MWp means megawatts peak, the rated output of the solar panels under standard test conditions. It is a measure of how much panel is installed. MW, as used in an offtake contract, can instead describe the power delivered to the grid, or an amount of energy averaged over time. A solar plant only produces near its peak for a few hours a day, so a contract sized on delivered or averaged power will always look smaller than the panel capacity behind it.
Leap does not say which of these definitions the 100 MW figure uses, and this post does not assume one. What the two numbers do show is that Votorantim's share of Luiz Carlos is large. On the panel measure it takes about 60 percent of the complex. For a buyer, the headline megawatt figure in a Brazilian solar PPA is only as useful as the definition behind it.
How does a 15-year term compare with other Brazilian solar contracts?
It sits in the middle. A 15-year term is long enough to support project financing on a plant not yet built, but short of the 20-year deals some developers have signed. For a cement maker, it locks in a large part of its power supply well beyond a typical planning cycle without committing for the full life of the panels.
Enerdatics' data shows that Leap records 19 solar PPAs in Brazil across 2023 and 2024. Only 11 disclose a duration, and they range from two years to 21. Three are longer than Atlas' contract with Votorantim Cimentos, at 20, 20 and 21 years, and six are shorter. Just one of the 19 carries a disclosed tariff: Soltec's PPA for the 112.5 MW Pedranopolis project, at $32.16 per MWh. Atlas Renewable Energy is the supplier in five of the 19, more than any other developer, including a 21-year PPA with aluminium producer Albras for the 768 MW Vista Alegre project.
What does the deal signal for Brazil's solar market?
It signals that heavy industry has become the anchor customer for Brazil's large solar projects. Votorantim Cimentos joins Albras, White Martins, Vallourec and Liasa among the industrial buyers Leap records signing solar PPAs in Brazil over the period. These are companies with large, steady, around-the-clock demand, and a long contract lets them fix part of their energy cost.
It also signals that developers can build whole complexes around a single anchor buyer and fill the rest later. Atlas has given 470 MWp of the 787 MWp at Luiz Carlos to one customer before construction. The remaining capacity becomes the developer's to place with other buyers. Atlas has followed that approach elsewhere, signing several buyers for its Draco project, including V.tal and Rede Primavera Saude.
Brazil's renewable market has drawn capital from many directions, from equity investors such as I Squared, whose case is examined in I Squared paying for Origo's pipeline, to the national development bank, as in BNDES funding most of Babilonia Centro. Contracts like this one are what make that capital work. A plant with a creditworthy industrial buyer for most of its output is far easier to finance than one selling into the open market.
The open question is how Luiz Carlos is financed and built. A signed PPA before construction is the first step, not the last, and the remaining capacity still has to find buyers.
Frequently asked questions
What did Atlas Renewable Energy sign with Votorantim Cimentos? A 15-year PPA, announced on 15 January 2024, for solar power from the Luiz Carlos project in Paracatu, Minas Gerais, recorded in Leap as 100 MW of capacity offtaken.
How big is the Luiz Carlos solar project? Luiz Carlos will have an installed capacity of 787 MWp, with 470 MWp allocated to Votorantim Cimentos.
How much of Votorantim Cimentos' energy will the PPA cover? About one third of its energy consumption in Brazil, helping it reach 75 percent renewable energy consumption in the country.
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