Haitai Solar had previously worked in Argentina and Uruguay and sought to transfer some of that learning to Brazil, although with a strategy adapted to a different scale and market structure.
What was the first step? Not to start with large projects, but to rely on the extensive Brazilian network of distributors and integrators.
“We came with a very specific objective: to find the right partner for the Brazilian market. After the work we've been doing in Argentina and Uruguay, the natural next step is Brazil, Chile, and Peru.”
But Brazil is not a market you can enter alone: you need a local partner who understands logistics, financing, and the customer,” said Gabriel Bustos, Regional Sales Manager of Haitai Solar , in an exclusive interview with Energía Estratégica during Intersolar South America.
The search was also influenced by price competition. The executive acknowledged that this variable still played a central role in Brazilian purchasing decisions, although the company expected other attributes to begin gaining ground in certain segments.
“We are looking for a partner who wants to work with us on the balance: quality at the right price,” he said.
Nearly 52 GW of GD tipped the first bet towards the distributed market
Brazil had already reached 74.3 GW of photovoltaic capacity in operation , according to ABSOLAR's updated report as of July 20, 2026. Of that volume, 51.69 GW corresponded to distributed micro and mini-generation , while another 22.62 GW belonged to centralized generation. This structure helped explain why Haitai prioritized distributed generation over utility-scale generation in its roadmap.
“We believe in building from the ground up, and today that means starting with distributed generation. Utility-scale is a huge segment, although today it is conditioned by the grid restrictions that have been occurring since last year, ” Bustos stated.
The evacuation problem had already ceased to be marginal. During the first three months of 2026, cuts reached 17.2% of solar and wind generation , compared to 15.3% recorded during the same period of the previous year, while the sector calculated accumulated losses of more than R$ 7 billion for generators.
Renewable energy expansion continued, but connecting new power and harnessing all available energy began to demand other solutions.
Haitai did not rule out utility-scale expansion, although it avoided setting a timeline for that second phase. “Utility-scale expansion in some Latin American countries is the logical next step, but that's a story we're still writing,” the company spokesperson stated.
The Argentine MATER shifted the conversation from the module to the private contract.
Argentina offered a different perspective. The Renewable Energy Term Market (MATER) is the system that allows renewable energy generators to enter into private power purchase agreements (PPAs) with large consumers, with dispatch priority conditioned by the available capacity on the transmission network. Its development expanded the scope for corporate PPAs and also raised the bar for technology providers.
The last call, made in February, had allocated 365 MW of dispatch priority to seven projects , of which 290 MW were solar . That was the market that Haitai used as part of its regional learning.
“In Argentina, with the MATER program and corporate PPAs, projects are becoming more technical and demanding: the client asks about degradation, warranty, and manufacturer support for twenty or thirty years. It's the kind of conversation we prefer, because it's the scenario we prepare for,” the interviewee explained to this publication.
Uruguay completed that experience with a much smaller, albeit technically demanding, system and with a recent opening to contracts between private entities.
“These are markets entering another stage, where financing becomes key for these types of medium-scale projects driven by private entities, and it also drives other types of conversations, from which we are learning,” he added.
The company did not propose a single recipe to be replicated throughout Latin America. Bustos placed Brazil and Chile among the markets where the challenge already involved the network, wastewater discharges, and storage; Argentina and Peru in an acceleration phase; and Uruguay in a more sophisticated stage.
From modules to energy management: where Haitai saw the next business opportunity
Haitai's reading coincided with the Brazilian market beginning to incorporate storage into its planning. Brazil has 6,091 BESS projects totaling 296.8 GW for its first dedicated auctions, scheduled for December, although industry benchmarks point to initial contracting of only 2 to 5 GW .
This scenario reinforced the executive's view on the segments with the greatest potential between 2027 and 2030. He pointed to "everything that combines generation with energy management: storage, hybrids, and commercial and industrial distributed generation."
“When connectivity is difficult and there is curtailment, the value shifts to how you manage peak power. Even what the customer asks of the manufacturer changes: more efficiency per hectare, design prepared for storage, more reliability. A more technical market and less of a commodity market,” summarized the firm's sales manager.
The manufacturer also noted a shift on the Chinese supply side. After two years of overcapacity and price pressure, the interviewee deemed the regulatory adjustments implemented in China necessary and ruled out an abrupt rebound. The expectation was for a gradual stabilization during 2027.
“For two years we had prices that did not reflect the real cost of manufacturing a quality module, and that is not sustainable for anyone in the industry,” he stated.
For Haitai, standardization could shift some of the competition towards manufacturers' financial capacity to sustain warranties and commitments throughout the life of projects.
“For Latin America, this means that manufacturers with a solid financial structure will remain, and that the purchasing decision will incorporate more variables in addition to price,” said Gabriel Bustos, Regional Sales Manager of Haitai Solar.
Brazil emerged as the next market to test this strategy. Haitai moved forward in its search for a partner to initially develop distributed generation, while the industry calendar already pointed to December 2nd and 4th , the dates scheduled for the country's first specific energy storage auctions.