Trina optimistic about storage, datacenters as growth avenues in Latin America

Chinese solar tracker manufacturer Trina Solar sees energy storage, mainly in Chile, and PPAs for power-intensive datacenters boosting demand in Latin America amid a slowdown in the solar module segment, Latin America president Álvaro García-Maltrás told BNamericas.

“We see a boom in the storage segment, especially led by Chile, which is where we are effectively opening our Trina Storage Operation Center in Latin America,” said the executive at the Intersolar sector event in São Paulo.

“Chile has been a fairly stable market in recent years. The solar part has shrunk a bit or stopped growing due to issues of congestion in the electrical networks, which don't allow the injection of much more energy. But precisely for that reason it has justified storage.”

For 2025, the executive projects Chile's storage capacity will reach 7-8GWh. 

At Trina, manufacturing for this line of business is concentrated in China.

The company has invested heavily in battery plants and manufacturing in recent years, and has become vertically integrated, García-Maltrás said.

Trina manufactures its own lithium cells and designs and consolidates storage solutions. García-Maltrás said this allows the group to have greater control over costs, the value chain, time and quality.

“It makes us very competitive,” he said. 

DATACENTERS

On datacenters, solar energy traders using Trina equipment have pointed to major technology and telecommunications groups as one of the main drivers of demand in the corporate sector.

There are customers reporting over 80% of generated capacity in their plants being sold via PPAs to data companies, according to García-Maltrás. 

“Several of our clients, including in Brazil, have signed PPAs for their plants with datacenters. This is a business model that has been identified. And we believe that incorporating storage into these types of projects also helps to ensure that the energy can be of higher quality, can have a regular flow. And, honestly, these datacenters enjoy much better margins.”

Overall, the solar energy market in Latin America is considered one of the world’s most dynamic but has been dealing with mismatches in supply and demand after strong recent growth cycles.

In Brazil, for example, the module segment grew approximately a 10% in 2023 after growing more than 40% in 2022. The start of charging fees in the distributed generation segment also helps to explain this downturn.

The four countries leading the market in the region are Brazil, Mexico, Chile and Argentina, which together represent almost 90% of LatAm’s photovoltaic capacity, but Brazil still remains far ahead of its peers.

“Brazil has a weighting of 70% of module demand in Latin America. That’s where a good part of our investments are going,” said the executive.

The main suppliers of photovoltaic modules in Latin America include, in addition to Trina Solar, Jinko Solar, Longi, JA Solar and Canadian Solar.