Quantification of CO2 emission reductions from energy efficiency actions and solar photovoltaic generation at the Federal Institute of Education, Science, and Technology of Goiás

Abstract

In 2016, the Brazilian Agency of Electric Energy launched a public call for research and development projects to reduce barriers to implementing energy efficiency projects and own electricity generation. One objective of this public call was to encourage pilot projects at the Brazilian public higher education institutions. In this context, the Federal Institute of Education, Science, and Technology of Goiás has approved the research project, entitled “Energy efficiency and mini generation at the Federal Institute of Education, Science, and Technology - IFG.” The project consists of implementing energy efficiency actions and installing photovoltaic distributed generation (mini generation) in twelve of the fourteen IFG campuses. The main objective of this work is to quantify the CO2 emission reductions from the project through the methodologies used by the United Nations Framework Climate Change Convention for projects under the Clean Development Mechanism. The emission reductions over the project lifetime was estimated at approximately 37,400 tCO2 equivalent, evidencing the environmental benefit to be provided by the referred project.