Fwd: Brazil’s battery boom
Loretta Lohman
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Battery auctions are usually sleepy affairs for all but the most diehard energy nerds. But one in Brazil is shaping up to be an interesting test of just how much influence China’s clean tech industry has in Latin America. Today’s newsletter looks at the inroads Chinese companies are making in the region’s largest economy and how they’re likely to fare against competitors. Plus, destructive wildfires have ripped through Chile, a country where such ferocious blazes were unheard of until recently. And we’re tracking the powerful winter storm that will test Texas’ grid and New York City’s new mayor Zohran Mamdani. Please subscribe to Bloomberg News to stay up to date on how climate change and the energy transition are playing out in Latin America. The battery battlegroundBy Fabiano Maisonnave and Akshat Rathi Brazil is set to hold its first electricity auction for grid-scale batteries in April, and Chinese companies — which have already invested heavily in the country’s power sector — are expected to be leading contenders, potentially bidding against the likes of Tesla Inc. and Petroleo Brasileiro SA. It’s another opportunity for Chinese firms to expand their footprint in Brazil. Between 2007 and 2024, power-sector projects accounted for 45% of China’s investments in Latin America’s largest economy, totaling $35 billion, according to the non-profit Brazil-China Enterprise Coalition. The auction comes after other countries in Latin America have begun contracting or building utility-scale battery projects, according to research firm BloombergNEF. Chile has been an early adopter and plans a significant battery expansion over the next five years. Argentina awarded 667 megawatts in its first-ever energy storage auction last September, with capacity expected to come online by 2027. Mexico’s state utility has announced at least 2.2 gigawatts of storage in its five-year expansion plan.  The global boom in solar and wind generation has led to the chronic problem of curtailment: Renewable plants are forced to shut down when there is not enough demand for power. Batteries can help absorb that cheap power and then inject it back into the grid when there is more demand. In 2025, Brazil lost on average around 26% of its solar generation and 19% of its wind generation due to curtailment, according to Vinicius Nunes, a Sao Paulo-based associate at BNEF. That would amount to a loss of 7 billion Brazilian reais ($1.3 billion) by one estimate. The Brazilian government has said it hopes the auction will secure 2 gigawatts of capacity. BNEF estimates that annual battery energy storage additions in Brazil could reach around 1.3 gigawatts by 2030. Chinese companies bring some comparative advantages, according to Larissa Wachholz, a partner at Vallya, a consultancy focused on China. They lead global battery production and, as the world’s largest investors in renewable energy, they have dealt with the challenges of integrating batteries into power grids. “There is already a large number of [Chinese] companies in Brazil that understand the electricity market and feel comfortable expanding their role to include operating storage systems,” she said. However, they won’t have the playing field to themselves. Among the companies to submit comments during the public consultation ahead of the auction were Tesla, Petrobras and Axia Energia. Firms hoping to act as system integrators — combining hardware, software and controls into a battery system — will submit their own bids in the auction. Those hoping to supply equipment will partner up with other companies. Chinese manufacturers are widely expected to dominate in equipment, regardless of who ultimately wins the contracts. “China controls everything from [battery] cell manufacturing to the production of the inputs needed to make those cells,” said Markus Vlasits, head of Brazil’s energy storage association, known as Absae. Many Western countries consider critical equipment made in China or by Chinese firms as a national security risk. But Brazil “is unlikely to see Chinese companies with this kind of fear,” said Vinicius Nunes, a Sao Paulo-based associate at BNEF. And whatever the results of the auction in March, he added, “a lot of the battery equipment is surely going to be provided by Chinese companies.” Read the full story to see who some of the big players are expected to be.
On the hunt$3.8 billion The amount a Brazilian renewable energy company backed by Blackrock Inc. is looking to spend to acquire small-scale solar energy assets. The other curtailment issue“As long as we don’t have a large number of transmission lines to transport this energy, we will continue to see a lot of curtailment.” Thaina Cavalini Associate director for infrastructure and project finance at, Fitch Storage isn’t the only challenge to Brazil’s excess renewable generation. Better and more widespread power lines are also needed to transport electricity efficiently. Chile’s fiery summer Two people
embrace in front of their home burned by wildfires
in Tome, Chile.
Photographer:
Javier Torres/AP Photo
Wildfires in south-central Chile have torn through more than 62,000 hectares (153,000 acres) — an area roughly the size of Chicago — and burned entire communities, claiming 20 lives. Tens of thousands of people have fled their homes. President Gabriel Boric and President-elect José Antonio Kast visited the affected region on Wednesday, and as of Thursday, there were still 18 uncontrolled blazes. Chileans are now confronting a tragedy that feels both devastating and increasingly familiar. Less than a decade ago, such catastrophic fires barely registered in the national consciousness. Today they are a looming threat during the Southern Hemisphere summer. The current fire season isn’t even near its end. The most deadly wildfires in Chile’s history, in February 2024, left 138 dead in the coastal town of Viña del Mar. It was the country’s worst disaster since the earthquake of 2010. Although the total burned area that fire season was smaller than in some previous years, the flames reached densely populated places, increasing their toll. But the year that marked the turning point was 2017. Then, blazes devastated 570,000 hectares, by far the largest area ever recorded in Chile. One study classified this as the first Chilean megafire, using a definition that takes into account a fire’s intensity, rate of speed and the distance embers travel, variables that define how predictable and controllable blazes are. In 2023, blazes destroyed an area roughly three times the size of Los Angeles and killed 26 people. Farmers lost tens of thousands of animals. Firefighters from eight countries, including France, Spain and Portugal, came to assist. Climate change has amplified fire conditions in South America as elsewhere. The recent fires broke out amid a severe heat wave, with high temperatures in some places around 38C (100F). Chile has been in a megadrought since 2007 — marked by uninterrupted, below-normal precipitation coupled with elevated temperatures, according to one analysis. Read the full story to see how fires are changing globally. This week’s Zero Decarbonizing energy is just one part of the climate story. The other half is electrifying as much as possible. That is why electrification, not decarbonization, is likely going to be the most important climate story of 2026. Kingsmill Bond is a strategist at thinktank Ember and the author of a paper called the Electrotech Revolution. This week on Zero, Bond tells Akshat Rathi why he believes electrification is inevitable, and what happens to those that are left behind. Listen now, and subscribe on Apple, Spotify or YouTube to get new episodes of Zero every Thursday. Arctic blastA winter storm descending on the US is expected to deliver heavy snow and ice to more than 150 million people across roughly two dozen states. Forecasts predict the storm will plunge Texas into a deep freeze before moving eastward and hitting major Northeast cities such as New York City and Boston.  People
walk through Manhattan in February 2025.
Photographer:
Spencer Platt/Getty Images
The storm is being driven by a potent weather phenomenon: a disruption of the polar vortex. Polar vortexes are girdles of swirling cold air and low pressure surrounding the Earth’s poles. “Vortex” refers to the counter-clockwise wind pattern that helps lock the cold air near the poles. The polar vortexes are always there, but the Arctic one can cause frigid weather in the US and portions of Europe and Asia when it splits or stretches. This can be caused by pressure from the jet stream, a fast-moving band of winds high in the atmosphere that flows west to east. The current storm was caused by a fluctuation in the jet stream that sent energy slamming into the Arctic polar vortex and bouncing back, stretching the vortex out of its normal shape. This allowed Arctic air to push south in a bubble shape, plunging into regions that do not typically experience such extreme cold. Some climate models suggest that continued global warming could contribute to more frequent weakening of polar vortexes, potentially increasing the likelihood of similar extreme cold events in the future. Here’s what we know about the approaching storm:
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