Solar power plant works boost the economy of Janaúba Minas Gerais

Located about 550 kilometers north of Belo Horizonte, the city of Janaúba (MG) is experiencing a peculiar moment in its 72 years of history. The city’s little more than 70,000 inhabitants now live with a floating population of around 5,000 outsiders, according to an estimate by the city hall.

They are easily recognizable: in their colorful overalls, they leave every day very early on dozens of buses heading to construction sites in the rural area and return at the end of the day to form crowds in bars, restaurants, squares or hotel doors.

The main city in the Serra Geral micro-region, Janaúba had its economy based on agribusiness, with pride in the quality of its fruits and meat. Today, it is one of the largest investment centers in solar energy in the country.

There are 14 parks under construction, including the one that will be the largest in Brazil, with a capacity to supply 6 million people. Another 83 projects in the municipality have already been granted by Aneel (National Electric Energy Agency).

It is not an isolated case in the region. With strong irradiation rates, little cloudiness and cheap land, the north of Minas Gerais has become a kind of eldorado for investments in solar energy.

Near Janaúba, there are parks operating or under construction in Jaíba, Capitão Enéas, Januária and Itacarambi. A little further away, Pirapora has emerged as another investment hub in the sector.

According to data from Aneel, Minas Gerais currently has half of the photovoltaic generation capacity under construction in the country: there are 41 projects with a total power of 1.8 GW (gigawatts).

Mostly, they are small plants that are betting on a shared economy model, such as mobility or accommodation applications: customers of all sizes can buy a slice of the energy generated, which guarantees them a discount on their electricity bills.

But there are also larger plants, aimed both at large industrial or commercial customers looking to improve their environmental footprint and for selling large lots at government auctions.

This is the case of the Janaúba plant, a project by Elera, a company that belongs to the Canadian Brookfield fund. In an area of ​​3,069 hectares, equivalent to the city of Diadema, in Greater São Paulo, 2.2 million photovoltaic modules will be installed to generate 1.2 GW when the project is completed.

The investment of R$2.3 billion was guaranteed by the sale of energy on the free market. “The crisis has not affected our investment plans in Brazil. On the contrary, it has brought growth opportunities for the company to continue contributing to the country’s economic development,” says the company.

At the end of November, when the report was in the region, nearly 2,000 people were working on the project. At the peak of the works, the number should exceed 2.5 thousand. It’s people who stay, eat and drink in Janaúba.

“The situation has improved a lot here,” says Adelson Barbosa, 43, who two years ago moved his restaurant to twice the size of downtown. “The people who are coming to provide service improve sales and give better margins.”

One of the outsiders, Paulo Leite, 39, from Piauí, has a history that is intertwined with the energy transition process that benefits the municipality. He worked for 20 years in the oil sector, but with the reduction of investments in refinery, he migrated to solar energy.

“I was out of action for a year,” he says. Today, he works with digging trenches for the passage of cables, but he is already thinking about taking a specialization course in electrical to follow in the sector. Sees the study as a possibility of better earnings and chances of professional advancement.

He mirrors his colleague Tomé Mendes, 32, who is amending his fifth solar park work in a row, living a “hotel life” across the country. “In the pandemic, the only thing that saved was the solar”, says Mendes.

With the flood of investments and workers’ expenses, the municipality’s ISS collection quadrupled between 2017 and 2021, reaching BRL 12 million, says the municipality’s Administration, Finance and Human Resources secretary, Fábio Cantuária.

Tax revenue in general doubled in the same period, going from R$ 20 million, according to data from the Ministry of Economy. The excess revenue drives civil construction in the city, which decided to renovate schools and health units.

The works at Elera Park changed the lives of residents of the rural district of Quem-Quem, next to the project entrance and part of the route of more than 40 buses that transport workers along the 45 kilometers that separate the plant from the urban center of Janaúba.

On the one hand, entrepreneurs prioritized the hiring of labor in the region and have moved small local businesses; on the other hand, the intense traffic of buses and trucks and the replacement of pastures and plantations with solar panels are a reason for concern.

“There is a lot of service for the people”, says Cristiane Martins Costa, 46, owner of a market with a bakery. “For me, it was also good, because they drink coffee here with me”, he adds, saying he estimates a 40% growth in bakery sales after the start of the works.

With around three thousand inhabitants, Quem-Quem is a small sample of the effects of the investments on the local economy: job and income generation, real estate speculation and a great concern with the moment when the works are finished.

Secretary Canterbury minimizes the impact on unemployment, saying that most of the employees are outsiders and that the city should attract maintenance companies to take care of the parks. But there is great fear among traders and the poorest population.

The farms that are receiving the solar panels were a source of jobs for rural communities in the region. With lesser qualifications, they are used in civil works, but they expect few opportunities when projects in the region are inaugurated.

Solar plants generally have few employees during operation. The smallest, not even that: they can be operated and monitored remotely. “While [as obras] are here giving service, it’s good. But, and when it ends?”, summarizes Cristiane.