Case study of photovoltaic power plants in a model of sustainable university in Brazil

Abstract

Universities play an important role in the search for a sustainable environment. The challenge for universities is to outline models of a sustainable society and show their benefits, seeking the engagement of all. In this opportunity, the University of Campinas (UNICAMP), with support from CPFL Brazil (Local Electricity Distributor), created a project called “Sustainable Campus” in August 2017. The Sustainable Campus project encompasses several sub-projects which aim to enhance the sustainability of the university. Among the subprojects (SP) of Sustainable Campus, the subproject photovoltaic (PV) was designed to follow up on the construction and operation of 6 PV power plants gathering a power equivalent of 535.26 kWp. In this way, this work explores the initiatives of the Sustainable Campus project with a focus on PV plants. Thus, it is possible to validate the simulations carried out with the PV plants and verify the impact of the system on the university. For this, the simulator data were compared with the measurement of the PV plants. Assembling the information, it was possible to verify different behaviours in PV plants in a range of 5 km. Quantitatively, for a year of data collected, an actual energy generation of 784.29 MWh was observed, while the simulated result showed a total of 759.04 MWh. PV generation resulted in 1.13% of the energy consumed by the university due to the large size of the campus. Furthermore, as UNICAMP is a consumer that is in the free energy market model, the analysis of a possible financial return is presented. With an estimated payback of 7.65 years considering the average cost of R$ 4.64/Wp, which makes the system viable. Finally, the success of this project aims to bias other universities to deploy renewable energy sources, contributing to sustainable development and scaling the initiative to other sectors.