One in every four solar energy systems in Brazil is in a city where no company with a solar energy name is headquartered. That is roughly 1.12 million systems, spread across 4,016 municipalities. Somebody installed all of that, and a good share of it probably came from out of town.
I got to that number by crossing two public datasets that almost nobody looks at together: the distributed generation registry from ANEEL (Brazil’s electricity regulator) and the CNPJ business registry from the Receita Federal (Brazil’s federal tax authority; CNPJ is the national company ID). The result became a free dashboard, Mercado Solar, which shows, municipality by municipality, how many systems exist and how many companies in the sector are based there.
Before the numbers, one warning that holds for the whole article: open data answers a lot, but it does not answer everything. I will be clear about where each limit sits.
What is solar market intelligence and why does an installer need it?
Solar market intelligence is knowing, from data and not from impressions, how much demand exists in your region and how many companies are fighting over that demand. For a small or regional installer, that decides where it is worth opening a sales front, where to advertise and where the fight is already about price alone.
The reason to look at this now is that the market has changed phase. The survey Greener (a Brazilian solar market research firm) runs with installers shows that the average number of quotes per month fell from 42 in the first half of 2022 to 25 in the first half of 2026. In the first half of 2025, 65% of installers pointed to the price war as a problem and 58% pointed to interest rates. In a market like that, running a campaign “across all of Brazil” burns budget. Knowing where the customer is starts to be worth money.
Oak Energia, my renewable energy startup, started in 2018 with that question. I paused Oak in 2023 to focus on Evolutiva (I told that story here). Now it comes back as an Evolutiva product, and the first step was to redraw the market map with what public data allows you to state.
How many solar energy companies are there in Brazil?
There is no official number, because the Receita Federal has no business activity code (CNAE, Brazil’s economic activity classification) that covers solar energy alone. Every count is an approximation, and public sources range from 12,000 to 30,000 companies, depending on what each one counts.
In our cut, we filtered the Receita Federal database (as of 09/12/2026) for active headquarters with a solar-specific name (“fotovoltaica”, “energia solar”, “sistemas solares” and variations) and an activity of electrical installation, electrical material trade or engineering. We removed power plants, SPEs (special purpose entities), consortia and equipment rental firms. That left 6,307 headquarters.
That number is a ceiling, not an exact count. We validated a sample of 40 companies through web searches: among the electrical installation ones (CNAE 4321500), only 7 out of 14 had verifiable online presence as installers. At the same time, a solar company with a neutral name (the owner’s name, for example) falls outside the filter. Use the cut to compare cities against each other, not to add up the market.
| Source | What it counts | Number |
|---|---|---|
| ANEEL, open distributed generation data | registered solar systems (through 08/31/2026) | 4,566,639 systems, 52.7 GW |
| Receita Federal, CNPJ (our cut) | active headquarters with a solar name and an installation activity | 6,307 (ceiling) |
| Market sources (Greener, Sebrae, ABSOLAR and commercial lists) | installers or companies in the supply chain | from 12,000 to 30,000, with no shared method |
Where are the solar systems with no local company?
Of the 5,567 municipalities with solar distributed generation, 4,016 have no company from our cut headquartered there, and together they add up to roughly 1.12 million systems (24.6% of the total). In 2025, 26.7% of all new distributed generation registrations happened in those cities.
This is not a spreadsheet curiosity. Among the 903 municipalities with a thousand registered systems or more, 154 have no company from the cut. There, the customer is served by a company from a neighboring city, a company with a neutral name or a network salesperson. For a regional installer, each of those cities is a market that has already bought solar energy and where nobody local is competing on Google.
The honest caveat: “no company from the cut” does not mean “no company”. It means no headquarters with a solar name and an installation activity. Before deciding on expansion, open the city in the dashboard and check on Google Maps who shows up.
The states with the most installed distributed generation capacity are São Paulo (7.0 GW), Paraná (6.9 GW) and Minas Gerais (6.4 GW). But capacity by state says little to someone serving a 100 km radius. The commercial decision happens at the municipal level.
Is the solar energy market still opening companies?
It is, but far fewer: companies in the cut opened per year fell from 796 in 2021 to 477 in 2025, while the country kept registering hundreds of thousands of systems a year. The company-opening timeline is the one data point no public distributed generation dashboard shows next to demand.
| Year opened | Companies from the cut active today |
|---|---|
| 2019 | 628 |
| 2020 | 625 |
| 2021 | 796 |
| 2022 | 757 |
| 2023 | 510 |
| 2024 | 554 |
| 2025 | 477 |
Two caveats change the reading. First, the Receita Federal only shows who is still active. A company opened in 2021 had more time to shut down than one opened in 2025. So the real drop in openings is probably larger than the table shows, not smaller. Second, the sector’s mortality is high: Greener reports that only 10% of installers founded before 2016 are still active.
The practical reading: after 2022, with Lei 14.300 (Brazil’s distributed generation law) and the end of part of the incentive, systems connected per year fell from more than 796,000 (2022) to more than 625,000 (2023), according to ANEEL. Fewer people opened companies, many shut down, and those who stayed are competing for a customer who is more sensitive to price and to credit. Financed sales fell from 57% (2021) to 33% (first half of 2026), according to Greener.
What can ANEEL’s data not tell you?
ANEEL reports the holder of each system (the owner of the electricity bill), not the company that installed it. So no installer ranking comes out of the open data, and be suspicious of anyone promising one.
Other limits the dashboard makes explicit:
- Registration year is not connection year. We use the project’s registry update date as an approximation. It works to see a trend, not to date a specific job.
- Systems per company is a rough reference. Dividing a city’s systems by its local companies mixes jobs done by out-of-town companies with a cut that is a ceiling.
- Actual generation in kWh does not appear. The database carries installed capacity, not how much each system generates.
- The last year is partial. 2026 runs through August/September.
I write these limits down because I have seen plenty of market presentations sell certainty where there is only approximation. A number with a caveat is worth more than a round number that falls apart at the first question.
How do you use the Mercado Solar dashboard in your city?
Open the Mercado Solar dashboard, pick your city and see the registered systems, the capacity and how many companies from the cut are based there, by period. It is free and asks for no sign-up to browse.
What you can do today:
- Filter by state and by period and watch the indicators change: companies opened, registered systems, capacity in MW and systems per company.
- See the timeline of companies opened per year side by side with distributed generation registered per year.
- Load the map by municipality, with three layers: companies, capacity and systems per company.
- Check the ranking of the 12 municipalities with the most systems in the period, plus the table by state.
- Type in your company’s CNPJ and see its public profile (size and years of activity), if it is in our cut.
If you want to go further, there is the diagnostic. You enter the range of systems you installed over the last 12 months and your biggest problem today (too few quotes, visits without a sale, customer service, price, after-sales or credit). The dashboard compares your range with the city’s reference, suggests a first step for the problem you flagged, shows up to 3 companies of similar size and activity in the same city, and hands you a kit of social posts with the municipality’s numbers, ready to copy.
The diagnostic is only released with your explicit consent for the use of the data, which serves only to generate the requested diagnostic. The similar companies come from public Receita Federal data and are not “direct competitors”. It is a profile comparison, not a ranking.
One use that tends to go unnoticed: after-sales. More than 1.6 million systems in the country were registered in 2022 or earlier, and the dashboard shows that number by city. Greener recorded that 85% of installers have already been approached by customers of other installers, and 53% already offer operation and maintenance (O&M). An old installed base is a customer for cleaning and inspection.
How can Evolutiva help people working in solar energy?
With data, technology and consulting, without trying to sell one more solar energy CRM. This market already has quoting and customer service tools, and good ones. What most companies lack is knowing where the demand is and having a digital operation that turns that demand into a conversation.
If you run an installer or integrator business
- Start with the free diagnostic. In Mercado Solar you open your city, see the installed systems and who operates there, and get a diagnostic of your company.
- If it makes sense, we build it together: a website and customer acquisition in the right cities, paid traffic measured from the click to the quote, and custom tools built on the public data for your region.
Open my city in Mercado Solar →
If your company wants to generate its own power
Before Evolutiva, I spent five years at Oak Energia, my renewable energy startup. That background now turns into two kinds of help:
- Renewable energy consulting: working out which source and which model make sense for your consumption, comparing proposals and choosing with confidence who will install it.
- Custom technology: simulators, dashboards and systems to track generation and return on investment, connected to the data your company already has.
Frequently asked questions
How many solar energy companies are there in Brazil?
There is no official number, because there is no CNAE code specific to solar energy. Public estimates range from 12,000 to 30,000. In our cut of the Receita Federal data (solar name and installation activity), there are 6,307 active headquarters, a number that should be treated as a ceiling.
Does ANEEL’s data show which company installed each system?
No. ANEEL publishes the system’s holder, not the installer. That is why you cannot build an installer ranking from open data. To compare your company with the city, you need the information only you have, such as how many systems you installed.
How do I see how many solar energy systems there are in my city?
Open the Mercado Solar dashboard and pick the city under “My city”. It shows the solar distributed generation systems registered with ANEEL, the capacity in MW and the companies from the cut headquartered there, with a period filter.
Is the solar energy market still growing in 2026?
It is growing in installed base, but the fight for customers got harder. Brazil passed 4.5 million systems, but the average number of quotes per installer fell from 42 a month (first half of 2022) to 25 (first half of 2026), according to Greener, and company openings in the sector have fallen since 2021.
Is the Mercado Solar dashboard free? What happens to my data?
It is free, and browsing the dashboard requires no sign-up. The diagnostic asks for email, municipality and explicit consent. The data serves only to generate the requested diagnostic, and the public dashboard shows only aggregate numbers by municipality and state, never personal data.
Why do some cities with many systems have no company in the dashboard?
Because the cut only finds headquarters with a solar energy name and an installation activity based in the city. Whoever serves that market may be a company from a neighboring municipality, a branch office or a company with a neutral name. For a regional installer, those cities are usually an expansion opportunity.
If you run an installer or integrator business and want to know where your next customer is, open your city in Mercado Solar. And if your city’s number surprises you, send me a message. I want to understand what the data does not show.