Insertion of renewable energy sources into Brazil’s power mix

ABSTRACT

Electricity generation through small hydro power (SHP), wind, biomass, and solar sources (WBSS) is a promising alternative, mainly from the sustainability perspective. Considering the increase of SHP and WBSS in Brazil’s Power System (BPS), which is a strong and inexorable trend, the analysis about impacts of this increase is absolutely indispensable. Could load growth be met by using a high percentage of SHP and WBSS in the power mix? What are the suitable strategies to make SHP and WBSS growth possible while maintaining load supply reliability? The main goal of this work to discuss these issues, and others, related to reliability and quality of BPS load supply regarding the increase of the SHP and WBSS percentage in the power mix, from a qualitative point of view.

KEYWORDS:

• Base load power plant
• electricity power mix
• energy policy
• intermittent sources of energy
• strategic planning of generation expansion

Notes

¹ The definition of the break-even price here is the amount enough to pay invested capital and all other O&M costs.

² Premise adopted: investment cost of $800USD/kW, internal rate of return of 12 %, O&M costs and other taxes.