Diagnóstico da competitividade da cadeia de suprimentos de equipamentos eletroeletrônicos aplicados à sistemas fotovoltaicos

Abstract

Although Brazil has a considerable market for photovoltaic power generation systems, this development has not triggered this equipment manufacturing industry growth. Almost all photovoltaic modules and inverters, which are the most critical parts of these systems, are imported. Companies that nationally produce, need to import a large part of the raw materials and, therefore, are dependent on a favorable external environment and are susceptible to supply chain interruptions that can affect their production. For a country to be competitive, investments are needed at all production chain levels, starting with investments in research and development, in addition to production and demand incentive policies. To measure competitiveness, one of the first steps is to map the national productive capacity and assess the competitiveness of the supply chain so that paths and opportunities for national development can be found. This research aims to develop a supply chain competitiveness diagnosis for inverters used in photovoltaic systems in the Brazilian scenario and the level of technological innovation in Brazil compared to the world scenario. For this, a questionnaire was applied to manufacturing companies, aiming to identify which are the most critical factors in the market that discourage greater investments in national production. The raw materials used in manufacturing were identified and a Brazilian context for the acquisition of these raw materials was presented. Through the analysis of published patents on photovoltaic inverters, it was possible to identify countries that invest the most in innovation, in addition to technologies that are being studied. To carry out this diagnosis, qualitative and quantitative data analysis techniques were used, corroborating them with technical data and scientific literature. The results of the diagnosis show that Brazil has an uncompetitive scenario for the national production of inverters, with raw materials costs and fiscal conditions in the country being one of the main critical points. Furthermore, the country makes few investments in research and development and does not offer incentives for more industries to establish themselves in the country, making it dependent on imported products and raw materials. The low investment in R&D&I is also reflected in the levels of intellectual property, with Brazil having negligible levels of patent deposits related to inverters. It is necessary to have greater investments in the Brazilian productive sector, in addition to structural reforms, to reduce “Brazil costs” and make the country more competitive, another area that demands attention is research and development, seeking to leverage Brazil on the world stage production and generation of renewable energies.