EDP signs agreement to invest in Blue Sol | EDP Brasil

EDP, through EDP Ventures Brasil, signed an investment agreement in Blue Sol Participações S.A., owner of Blue Sol Energia Solar LTDA., Blue Sol Franquia LTDA. and Blue Sol Educacional LTDA., with the objective of acquiring a stake of up to 40% in the company.

Created in 2008, Blue Sol operates in the photovoltaic solar generation segment for the B2C market, through a business model that includes franchises, and offers complete solutions from project design, equipment supply, installation and documental procedures to enable the connection with the local energy utility. The company has a network of 34 franchises spread across 16 states, covers the entire national territory, and promotes the training of professionals in the solar area, having already trained more than 18 thousand people.

Another focus of Blue Sol is the experience of the solar energy consumer and business partners. To simplify it, the company has been strategically dedicated to the digitization of information and has developed a proprietary platform that helps design new systems, develop commercial proposals and monitor projects that are marketed autonomously.

As a result of these initiatives, in 2020, Blue Sol sold projects with more than 17.5 MWp of power. As a result, it totaled 50 MWp in projects sold in the business, residential and agribusiness segments between 2015 and 2020. In the short term, the company seeks to significantly increase its network of partners and bring photovoltaic solar energy closer to energy monitoring technologies, storage through lithium-ion batteries and charging of electric vehicles, which act in a complementary manner.

With the completion of the deal, EDP seeks to obtain greater sales capillarity in the B2C solar energy segment. “Solar energy plays a central role in EDP's strategy to lead the energy transition in Brazil. For this reason, after consolidating our position as a benchmark supplier among large corporate customers, this new acquisition marks our clear objective to significantly increase our presence in the B2C market, bringing the excellence for which we are also recognized to residential and business customers small and medium-sized companies and creating a solid growth platform capable of serving the client in different regions of the country”, says Carlos Andrade, Vice President of Strategy and New Business at EDP Brasil.

For Blue Sol, in turn, EDP's investment in the company should accelerate growth projections and leverage the business digitization process. “We are convinced that EDP's entry into Blue Sol will bring an important growth leap for our business. We will take our expansion to a new level and, with the application of more resources in the digitization and logistics processes, it will be possible to enhance the consumer experience. Consequently, the culture of generating solar energy at the point of consumption will gain even more relevance”, says Nelson Colaferro, President of Blue Sol.

Solar energy market

EDP ends 2020 with 58.9 MWp in solar energy projects – 30.8 MWp under development and 28.1 MWp already installed for clients such as Banco do Brasil, TIM, Claro, Globo, Johnson & Johnson, among others.  In the coming years, the company will continue to expand investments in the area through EDP Smart, a division that brings together the group's portfolio of energy solutions.

According to the Brazilian Association of Photovoltaic Solar Energy (Absolar), in 2020 Brazil surpassed the mark of 7.2 gigawatts (GW) of installed power in the photovoltaic solar source. Since 2012, more than R$36.5 billion has been invested in the sector, which has generated more than 219,000 new jobs and collected R$10.4 billion in taxes. Since then, the use of this energy source has already avoided the emission of more than 1.1 million tons of CO2 into the atmosphere.

In distributed generation, the country has 4.2 gigawatts of installed capacity, which represents more than R$ 15 billion in investments since 2012, spread across the five national regions. In centralized solar generation, there is almost 3.0 GW of installed power, equivalent to 1.7% of the Brazilian electricity matrix. The total investments foreseen until 2025, referring to projects already contracted in energy auctions, exceed R$ 25.8 billion.

About EDP in Brazil

With over 20 years of experience, EDP is one of the largest private companies in the electricity sector operating throughout the value chain. The Company, which has more than 10,000 direct and outsourced employees, has six hydroelectric and one thermoelectric generation units, in addition to operating in Transmission, Commercialization and Energy Services. In Distribution, it serves about 3.5 million customers in São Paulo and Espírito Santo, in addition to being the main shareholder of Celesc, in Santa Catarina. In 2020, it was elected the most innovative company in the electricity sector by the Valor Inovação ranking, of the Valor Econômico newspaper, and is a reference in Governance and Sustainability, having been on the B3 Corporate Sustainability Index (ISE) for 15 consecutive years.

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About Blue Sol

A pioneer company in the photovoltaic solar energy sector, Blue Sol Energia Solar was founded in 2009 making projects. Observing the market, the partners understood that they could contribute a lot to the development of the sector. It was then that, in 2011, they began offering courses for training professionals interested in working in the solar market. Today, with more than 10 years of activities, Blue Sol operates on three fronts: capacity building and training, development of commercial, residential and agribusiness projects and facilities, in addition to the development of the franchise network in the area of photovoltaic solar energy. The company operates nationwide and has more than 18 thousand trained professionals and more than 3.8 thousand photovoltaic systems connected and sold throughout Brazil - www.bluesol.com.br