Industrial measurement and monitoring firm Vaisala has won its first solar contract in Brazil, in another sign of the Latin American market’s growing attraction.

Vaisala will work with Sky Solar on its 30MW Tocantins project to provide output forecast data to help developers and financers make informed contracting decisions.

"For too long, project owners have been forced to make early-stage project development decisions that materially impact the long-term operational and financial performance of a project, without having good quality data at hand," said José Bascones, project manager, Sky Solar.

“We've also always taken great strides to ensure that we have the best possible overview of the financial performance and profitability of our projects. By working directly with Vaisala, we've capitalised on their sector understanding and experience and look forward to working with them in the future, as our project pipeline continues to develop," added Bascones.

"With competition for funding at an all time high, the challenge for many ambitious developers is to ensure that consented projects are properly valued and assessed from the very start,” said Nicholas Wilson, energy regional segment manager, Americas, Vaisala.

“A key part of which is quickly gaining an informed and validated picture of the potential project's true performance capability. For many developers, this means looking beyond a single year of meteorological data and capitalising on the strength of much more established and proven historical data sets,” he added.

Last week the country held its first solar-only auction that commissioned 889.7MW of solar power projects at an average price of Rs215.12/MWh (US$86.80/MWh).

The auction was the first with a dedicated solar only segment. Previous renewable energy auctions in Brazil had seen solar fail to compete with other technologies. A combination of falling solar costs and rising electricity prices in energy hungry Brazil have improved the economics of the technology.

A number of manufacturers including Hanergy and Yingli have announced plans to establish a manufacturing presence in the country.