TITLE:
Siting Study of Solar Thermoelectric Plants in the State of Minas Gerais
AUTHORS:
Chigueru Tiba, Ruibran Januário dos Reis Reis, Júlio César Ezequiel da Costa, Verônica Wilma Bezerra Azevedo, Jõao Francisco Abreu, Melina Amoni Silveira Alves, Daniel Pereira Guimarães, Marco Aurélio Dumont Porto
KEYWORDS:
Solar Energy, Thermoelectric Solar Plant, Geographical Information System, Promising Regions in the Minas Gerais
JOURNAL NAME:
Journal of Geographic Information System,
Vol.6 No.5,
October
6,
2014
ABSTRACT: The generation of
heliothermal electricity has received increasing attention throughout the world
in countries such as Spain, the USA, Germany and many others. In Brazil, this
type of energy generation in the form of large projects (above 80 MW) remains
unexplored. However, it is known that in the country, there are extensive areas
of normal direct irradiation with high intensity and a low seasonality factor,
especially in the semiarid regions in Brazil, mainly the North and Northeast of
Minas Gerais. Moreover, these Minas Gerais regions have other significant
characteristics for the installation of these plants: proximity to transmission
lines, flatness, the fact that the respective vegetation is not endangered, a
suitable land use profile (availability of land not used in agriculture), low
wind speed, low population density, and, most recently, an increase in the
demand for local electric energy due to the economic growth above the Brazilian
average rate. Furthermore, the introduction of solar plants in that region, due
to its distributed nature, will bring development and growth to the region
(normally poor) by generating employment and income. This article presents a
study of the optimal location of thermoelectric plants in the semiarid regions
of Minas Gerais, conducted with Geographical Information System (GIS)
technology. GIS consists of a set of specialised resources that allow the manipulation
of spatial data, bringing efficiency and agility in the identification of
suitable places for the installation of solar plants, while simultaneously
enabling the consideration of future scenarios for energy planning, with its
respective impact, costs and benefits. The
study has identified very promising solar irradiation levels for the electric
generation by solar energy, whether thermoelectric or photovoltaic, reaching an
annual solar irradiation of 2700 kWh/m2 in the summer and in the range of 2200
- 2400 kWh/m2 on an annual basis. This area includes a vast region in the
North/Northeast of the state, which also has continuous and flat regions, with
slopes inferior to 3%; in addition, high-quality hydro resources are abundant
and well distributed. Furthermore, the Minas Gerais region has few areas with
high agriculture profile and reduced quantity of protected units. Therefore,
generally speaking, the coverage of the transmission lines in that region is
suitable. Considering the most relevant aspects mentioned before, and taking as
a reference the micro-region limits defined by the IBGE, the following
micro-regions were classified as the most promising ones: 1) Janaúba, 2)
Januária, 3) Pirapora and Unaí, 4) Pirapora and Paracatu, 5) Curvelo and Três
Marias, and 6) Patrocínio and Araxá. Finally, it is important to highlight that
this potential might be explored gradually in the medium term, with the
shortage of other supply sources, the scale up and readiness of such
technologies, as well as the creation of a complex solar-wind-hydro system that
leverages the strong complementarity of such resources, as has been observed.