Abstract
Roughly 99% of the demand for electricity in Brazil is supplied by a national interconnected grid. The remaining 1% is spread in several “isolated systems” of the Amazon region—mini-grids that rely on expensive diesel gensets due to high commodity and transportation costs. The isolated systems also have remote communities disconnected altogether from the mini-grids with inadequate health, education and leisure services. These communities are precariously supplied by small inefficient diesel gensets that run for a few hours per day. In this article, we propose a sustainable and economic alternative for the electric supply of the remote communities of isolated systems through a combination of photovoltaic solar generation and storage. The objective is to improve access to electricity with savings for the communities. The present paper outlines a public policy to meet this objective.
Highlights
In order to evaluate alternatives to remote communities in the Brazilian off-grid system we used HOMER, a software for microgrids and hybrid systems simulations developed by NREL (National Renewable Energy Laboratory), a laboratory of the North American energy department [12]
One of the principal results that were evaluated is the levelized cost of energy (LCOE), which is a commonly used metric to determine the competitiveness of a technology
The photovoltaic—only solution with battery bank is preferable. We compare this solution for the two different configurations, i.e., the one modeled after the SIGFI60 criteria and the one optimized by HOMER
Summary
The Brazilian interconnected electricity system (SIN) provides 99% of the national demand. In the last few years the larger cities of the Northern Brazil, such as Manaus and Rio Branco, have been connected to the SIN. The remaining 1% is scattered in several mini-grids in the so-called “isolated systems”, mostly in the Northern region of Brazil. Due to the use of inefficient gensets and overly expensive diesel, the cost of supply per MWh served of the isolated systems is ten times higher than the SIN and the emissions of carbon dioxide (tCO2/MWh) are roughly nine times higher [1]. Tariffs paid by consumers of isolated systems.
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