After the Race for Renewables, the Age of Flexibility Begins: Norvento Arrives in Brazil with Converters Up to 9 MW and a New Vision for Energy

In an exclusive interview with EnergyChannel at Intersolar South America 2026, Gustavo Christovam João, Applications Engineer at Spain-based Norvento TECHnPower, explains why the future will not be defined simply by more solar, more wind or more batteries — but by the ability to transform all these technologies into a single intelligent, flexible and controllable energy system.

https://youtu.be/iSIOsOq5vDM

By Ricardo Honório | EnergyChannel

Special Coverage — Intersolar South America 2026 | São Paulo

For years, the energy transition has been measured in numbers.

How many gigawatts of solar power were installed?

How many wind farms came online?

How much did module prices fall?

How much did the share of renewables increase?

That race is not over.

But a new question is beginning to move to the center of energy decision-making:

It is no longer enough to know how much energy we can generate. We need to decide when that energy will be available.

Solar can produce electricity at noon.

But what if the system needs that electricity four hours later?

The wind may blow overnight.

But what if demand is concentrated in the early evening?

A power plant may produce abundant clean energy.

But what if the grid cannot absorb it at that moment?

These questions point to a profound — yet relatively quiet — shift.

The first phase of the energy transition was dominated by the expansion of renewables.

The next will be dominated by flexibility.

That was precisely the vision that emerged from EnergyChannel's conversation with Gustavo Christovam João, Applications Engineer at Norvento TECHnPower, during the Spanish company's first appearance at Intersolar South America.

“We are entering a transition where it is no longer just about adding renewables. We need to understand: do we need this energy now, at the moment it is being generated, or will we need it four hours from now?”

That may be one of the most important questions facing the power system over the next decade.

An Engineering Company Before It Became a Manufacturer

To understand Norvento, it is necessary to go back more than four decades.

According to Gustavo, the company began in Spain as an engineering business.

It later became an IPP — Independent Power Producer, developing and operating its own renewable energy projects.

Only after that did it move deeply into technology manufacturing.

That sequence matters.

It means that some of the company's equipment emerged from problems its own engineers encountered in real-world projects.

“We started with engineering and gained extensive experience through our own projects. That allows us to look at needs and challenges from the customer's perspective.”

Today, Norvento operates across several areas of the energy transition, with a particular focus on power electronics, energy storage, microgrids, renewable generation and wind turbines.

According to Gustavo, the group has more than 40 years of experience in the sector and hundreds of megawatts of its own projects, primarily in Spain.

But there is something particularly interesting about that journey.

The company did not begin by asking:

“What equipment can we sell?”

It began with a different question:

“What equipment do we need to solve our own problems?”

From 50 kW to Nearly 9 MW

That evolution becomes clear when Gustavo describes the development of the company's converters.

“We started with 100 kW and 50 kW converters. And this one is 9,000 kW.”

Decades of learning from smaller projects ultimately converged into a new generation of utility-scale equipment.

At Intersolar 2026, the company introduced its nXL family to the Brazilian market, developed for large-scale applications.

According to Norvento's official technical documentation, the platform can reach approximately 9 MVA within a 20-foot footprint, depending on the configuration, combining high power density with advanced grid-support capabilities.

It is a remarkable leap.

From tens of kilowatts to megawatts.

But power may actually be the least interesting part of the story.

9 MW in 20 Feet: When Space Becomes an Engineering Challenge

In large solar plants and energy storage systems, power density matters.

Every meter of space represents infrastructure.

Cables.

Foundations.

Logistics.

Civil works.

Electrical distances.

Commissioning.

Maintenance.

The nXL family's proposition is to concentrate substantial power within a compact architecture.

In its Power Station configuration, Norvento integrates the converter, medium-voltage transformer and switchgear onto a single skid-mounted platform.

For the nXL PCS Power Station, designed for utility-scale energy storage, the company states capacity of up to 9 MVA within 20 feet.

Its photovoltaic version follows the same integration philosophy for large-scale solar plants.

Less space.

Fewer interfaces.

Less complexity in the field.

In projects that can reach hundreds of megawatts, small optimizations multiplied dozens of times are no longer small.

Built for the Desert and Other Extreme Environments

Another point highlighted during the interview is cooling.

The nXL uses a sealed liquid-cooling architecture, reducing air exchange between the power section and the external environment.

This becomes particularly important in locations where dust, airborne particles, salt, corrosion or extreme temperatures can compromise electronic equipment.

Gustavo points to the Atacama Desert as an example of the kind of environment that demands particular attention to thermal engineering.

Norvento's technical documentation specifies IP65 protection, operation at rated power up to 40°C without derating, and a cooling architecture designed for harsh environments.

It is an important reminder:

The energy transition may be global.

But equipment still has to survive wherever it is installed.

THDi Below 1%: Power Quality Matters Too

Power is not the only relevant metric.

As power electronics become increasingly prevalent across electricity systems, the quality of the energy delivered by these devices becomes more important.

During the interview, Gustavo highlighted the converter's extremely low total harmonic distortion.

Official specifications for the nXL family indicate THDi below 1% across its operating range.

It may sound like a technical detail.

It is not.

As electricity systems become increasingly dependent on power electronics, power quality, harmonics, stability and response capability take on greater importance.

And that leads to perhaps the equipment's most strategically significant feature.

Grid Forming: Connecting to the Grid Will No Longer Be Enough Equipment Will Need to Help Support It

The nXL family was designed to operate in both Grid Following and Grid Forming modes.

Norvento's documentation also lists capabilities including Black Start, STATCOM, active filtering and grid-support services.

That places the technology within a conversation that goes far beyond energy storage.

As solar and wind increase their share of electricity generation, power systems become increasingly dependent on power-electronics-based equipment.

And that equipment will need to do much more than simply convert direct current into alternating current.

It will increasingly need to contribute to:

stability;

voltage control;

frequency control;

power quality;

grid restoration;

and the operation of increasingly complex power systems.

Gustavo summarizes the importance of this control layer:

“The control side, which many people don't look at, is important. Grid codes are becoming increasingly demanding.”

In other words:

the future may not necessarily belong to the most powerful inverter. It may belong to the smartest one.

And Then Come the Batteries

If flexibility represents the next stage of the energy transition, energy storage is one of the central tools for delivering it.

Gustavo explains the problem simply.

Renewable energy is generated when the resource is available.

Solar when there is sunlight.

Wind when there is wind.

But consumers and the grid do not necessarily need that energy at the exact moment it is produced.

That is where BESS comes in.

“You've generated the energy, but do you have to dispatch it immediately? No. You can store it, hold that energy and dispatch it later.”

That capability changes the relationship between time and electricity.

A megawatt-hour generated at noon does not necessarily have to be consumed at noon.

It can be shifted.

Scheduled.

Preserved.

Dispatched when it carries greater economic or system value.

BESS Can Mean Completely Different Things Depending on Who Is Looking at It

There is another important observation in the interview.

Energy storage does not have a single application.

For a generator, BESS may mean energy arbitrage.

For the grid, it may mean stability.

For an industrial customer, it may mean power quality.

For a critical consumer, it may mean backup power.

For a renewable project, it may mean time-shifting generation.

For the broader power system, it may mean capacity and flexibility.

“It depends on the perspective of whoever is looking at it. It depends on where that BESS is connected.”

That statement helps explain why calculating the value of a battery solely through the cost per stored kilowatt-hour may be insufficient.

Its value also lies in the service that stored energy can provide.

The Battery Is Not the Brain of a BESS

Perhaps one of Gustavo's most technically important statements during the interview is also one of the simplest:

“BESS is not just the battery.”

A large-scale energy storage installation consists of an entire chain of equipment.

Batteries.

PCS — Power Conversion System.

Transformers.

Switchgear.

EMS — Energy Management System.

PPC.

Protection systems.

Automation.

Control.

Communications.

The battery stores energy.

But something has to decide:

when to charge;

when to discharge;

at what power level;

to what state of charge;

how many cycles to perform;

which service to prioritize;

and how to preserve the asset's useful life.

That is where power electronics and control come in.

“The PCS the converter together with the EMS and PPC is the brain.”

A Bad Decision Can Age a Battery Too

That intelligence has direct economic consequences.

Batteries degrade.

The speed of that degradation depends on multiple factors.

Depth of discharge.

State of charge.

Charging and discharging power.

Temperature.

Number of cycles.

Operating strategy.

This means two projects using apparently identical batteries can produce completely different economic results depending on how they are operated.

One strategy may maximize revenue today while accelerating degradation.

Another may preserve the asset while leaving money on the table.

The right answer depends on the project's objective.

And increasingly, that answer is a software decision.

Hybrid Projects Are Replacing Separate Technology Silos

For decades, the energy industry organized technologies into separate categories.

Solar.

Wind.

Batteries.

Diesel.

Biomass.

The grid.

Each was treated as its own project.

Gustavo believes that logic is beginning to disappear.

“The trend is to look at the project as a whole — as a hybrid system.”

The question is no longer:

Which technology should I install?

It becomes:

Which combination of technologies can deliver the energy I need, when I need it, at the cost and reliability level I require?

The difference may sound semantic.

In practice, it completely changes the engineering.

Solar + Wind + BESS Are No Longer Three Separate Projects

Imagine a region with excellent solar resources during the day and strong wind resources during other periods.

There is also a battery.

Perhaps a conventional backup source.

And a constrained grid connection.

The challenge is no longer to optimize each individual asset.

The objective becomes making the entire portfolio operate as one virtually coordinated power plant.

“The project has to see it as one large element rather than several small, independent elements.”

This is where control, automation and power electronics become central.

The hardware generates and stores energy.

Control turns everything into a system.

In the Caribbean, the Future Is Already Operating as a System

Gustavo points to Norvento projects in the Caribbean as examples of this approach.

Some installations combine diesel generation, photovoltaics and BESS.

In these environments, engineers work with customers to define algorithms and operating strategies:

when to charge;

when to discharge;

how many cycles to use;

how much battery life to preserve;

when to prioritize availability;

how to reduce fuel consumption;

and how to deliver energy to the community.

It is a practical demonstration that hybridization does not simply mean placing different technologies on the same site.

It means making them think together.

Vertical Integration as a Technology Strategy

Norvento has structured engineering, project development, automation, control and operations teams within a relatively vertically integrated organization.

That creates an interesting relationship between operational experience and product development.

A problem discovered in the field can return to engineering.

Engineering modifies the control strategy.

Control influences product development.

The product goes back into the field.

It is a cycle.

And it helps explain how a company that began by developing its own renewable projects eventually moved into manufacturing multi-megawatt-scale converters.

Why Brazil?

2026 marks Norvento's first participation in Intersolar South America.

And the company is arriving without pretending it already has every answer.

Gustavo is clear:

“We're coming here to understand the market and learn about its needs.”

That caution matters.

Brazil is not simply a tropical version of the Spanish market.

Its energy mix is different.

Its grid is different.

Its hydropower presence is different.

Its distances are different.

Its large consumers are distributed differently.

Its grid codes have their own specific requirements.

And therefore, the value of energy storage may also be different.

Brazil Already Has a Gigantic “Battery” Except It Is Made of Water

Gustavo makes a particularly interesting comparison.

Brazil has a massive share of hydropower in its electricity system.

Within their operational limitations, reservoirs can store potential energy in the form of water.

“A hydropower plant is a huge storage system almost like a large BESS, if you think about it except it doesn't use batteries.”

Technically, they are very different technologies.

But the analogy helps explain a structural characteristic of Brazil.

Brazil's need for batteries will not necessarily follow exactly the same trajectory as countries with very different electricity mixes.

In Spain, arbitrage may play a particular role.

In Brazil, other applications may develop more quickly.

Capacity, Peak Shaving, Backup and Decarbonization

Gustavo sees several potential entry points for energy storage in Brazil.

Capacity markets.

Industrial applications.

Peak shaving.

Backup.

Power quality.

Decarbonization for large energy consumers.

Renewable integration.

Each has a different economic logic.

This reinforces a fundamental principle:

there is no single “Brazilian BESS market.” There are multiple BESS markets within Brazil.

Norvento's strategy at this initial stage is precisely to understand which of those markets are the best fit for its technologies.

Norvento Is Not Arriving with a Ready-Made Formula

The company is evaluating different business models for Brazil.

Equipment sales.

Partnerships.

Engineering.

Integration into larger projects.

Potential turnkey structures.

The configuration will depend on the customer.

A major utility-scale project may involve several players across the value chain.

An industrial customer may prefer to work with a single provider.

“It all depends on segmenting the market and understanding each project individually.”

That approach matters because energy storage remains a market in formation.

Trying to impose one commercial solution on every application would ignore precisely the complexity that makes this market so interesting.

The Next Revolution May Not Even Be Called BESS

At the end of the interview, Ricardo Honório asked Gustavo to imagine meeting again in 2030.

What would have changed?

His answer may be the best summary of the entire conversation.

Five years ago, Gustavo recalls, batteries were still a much more preliminary discussion.

Technically possible.

But often difficult to justify commercially.

Now the landscape has changed.

Costs have fallen.

Applications have matured.

Projects have grown.

And new battery chemistries continue to advance.

Lithium.

Sodium.

Solid state.

And other technologies that may yet reach commercial scale.

But perhaps the biggest change will not be chemistry.

It may be language.

“Who knows? Maybe we won't even be talking about BESS anymore. We'll be talking about systems.”

That sentence deserves attention.

Because it describes exactly where the industry appears to be heading.

2030: Fewer Pieces of Equipment, More Systems

Perhaps by 2030, nobody will simply ask:

How many megawatts of solar do you have?

Or:

How large is your battery?

The question may become:

How much flexibility can your system deliver?

How much energy can it shift?

How much can it dispatch?

How quickly can it respond?

How much can it stabilize?

How much asset life can it preserve?

How much transmission congestion can it relieve?

How much renewable generation can it integrate?

Gustavo summarizes that shift:

“It's no longer about how I add renewables, but how I increase flexibility, how I increase the predictability of my system, what the challenges are, and how I relieve congestion on my transmission line.”

That is the leap.

From individual technologies to system-level functionality.

EnergyChannel Analysis | The Next Phase of the Energy Transition Will Not Be Measured Only in Gigawatts

A shift is quietly taking place across the global energy industry.

During the first major phase of the energy transition, winning meant installing.

More panels.

More turbines.

More megawatts.

More renewable capacity.

That expansion was essential.

But it created a new set of challenges.

Excess generation at certain times.

Grid congestion.

Curtailment.

Volatility.

Capacity requirements.

Power quality.

Stability.

Mismatch between generation and demand.

And the more renewable energy we add, the more important these issues become.

That is why the next phase will not simply be a continuation of the first.

It will represent a paradigm shift.

From generation to management.

From power to flexibility.

From equipment to systems.

In this world, a battery alone is worth less than a battery that is intelligently controlled.

A standalone solar plant may be worth less than a hybrid plant capable of shifting its production.

A wind turbine becomes more than a generation asset when it can operate in coordination with storage.

And a converter becomes more than a device sitting between direct and alternating current when it begins contributing to grid stability.

Norvento's story is particularly interesting because it has experienced this transformation from the inside.

It began with engineering.

It became a project developer and operator.

It learned in the field.

It moved into manufacturing.

It started with converters in the tens of kilowatts.

Now it is presenting a product family reaching approximately 9 MW.

And it arrives in Brazil precisely as the country begins a much more concrete discussion about the role batteries will play in its electricity system.

But perhaps the most important contribution of this interview is not a product.

Not 9 MW.

Not Grid Forming.

Not liquid cooling.

It is an idea.

We may be approaching the moment when we stop thinking about solar, wind and batteries as separate industries.

They will simply become components.

Tools within a larger architecture.

The real product will be the ability to deliver energy:

where it is needed;

when it is needed;

at the quality required;

for as long as it is required.

If that vision proves correct, the energy race toward 2030 will not necessarily be won by whoever installs the most equipment.

It will be won by whoever can make that equipment work together.

The first era of renewables was about generation.

The second begins now.

And it will be about flexibility.

EnergyChannel Special Coverage | Intersolar South America 2026

In its first appearance at Intersolar South America, Spain-based Norvento TECHnPower introduced the Brazilian market to its expertise in power electronics, energy storage, microgrids and renewable technology integration.

Among the highlights is the nXL family, developed for utility-scale applications and available in different architectures for photovoltaics, energy storage and hybrid systems. The platform can reach approximately 9 MVA in certain configurations and incorporates advanced capabilities including Grid Forming and Black Start.

The company has also developed hybrid configurations integrating photovoltaics and BESS through DC coupling, reinforcing the central vision Gustavo presented during the interview: the future will be less about isolated technologies and increasingly about integrated energy systems.

Interviewee: Gustavo Christovam João

Position: Applications Engineer

Company: Norvento TECHnPower

Interview: Ricardo Honório — EnergyChannel

Event: Intersolar South America 2026

Location: Expo Center Norte — São Paulo, Brazil

EnergyChannel

We Tell the Stories Driving the Energy Transition.

After the Race for Renewables, the Age of Flexibility Begins: Norvento Arrives in Brazil with Converters Up to 9 MW and a New Vision for Energy