OREANDA-NEWS. October 31, 2011. In the course of the three first months of the commercial operation of the Taua power plant, a venture developed by MPX, entrepreneur Eike Batista EBX Group energy company,  that is, from July to September, plant production added up to a monthly average of  150MWh of active energy  - the energy that  drives electrical and electronic equipment -  which represents capacity enough to drive five thousand refrigerators.

Built in the municipality of the same name, in the region of  Inhamuns, inland in the state of Ceara and  360 kilometers from  Fortaleza, the Taua plant features an initial installed capacity of 1MW, sufficient to supply power to 1.5 thousand families relying on photovoltaic panel state-of-the-art technology . Investments amounting to BRL  10 million were directed to the Taua solar power plant, and the Interamerican Development Bank (IDB) supported this trail blazing project in Brazil with a BRL  1.2 million fund contribution.

Plant capacity increase moving forward

Additionally, in September MPX Taua was visited by a team of solar power specialists from GE, and started the works of plant capacity increase. Under the agreement with GE, executed at the time off the start-up of Taua solar power plant, GE will supply the full package of photovoltaic technology equipment and systems   needed to duplicate venture installed capacity to reach  2 MW, by  2012. Because of the expansion,  6.9 thousand additional panels will be installed in the solar plant. In the whole, 11,580 solar modules will be capturing sunlight and changing it into electric power.

The Taua solar power plant is connected to the National Integrated System (SIN) through  local distributor substation.  For the second phase,  the venture has already been issued the required authorization from the  National Power Agency (Aneel) and State of Ceara Environmental Superintendency  (Semace) license to increase plant capacity up to 5 MW. In  solar plant design MPX has planned for  capacity increase up to  50 MW.