Avaliação da capacidade de acumulação hídrica na Fronteira Oeste - RS para a produção descentralizada de energia elétrica

Abstract

With the constant increase in electricity consumption, as well as the contextualisation of the economic, environmental and social impacts of the use of fossil fuels, new means of generating energy from renewable sources must be explored. In this way, the rational use of natural resources, especially water, essential for the survival of all living species of the terrestrial globe and the main source of generation of the national energy matrix can be emphasized. Aiming at the conscious use of these resources, focusing on food production, the region of the West Frontier of Rio Grande do Sul was chosen as the basis for study, justifying the choice of this region as the largest rice producer in Brazil, as well as be a crop that needs a lot of water. Based on this premise, we sought to estimate a quantitative generation of energy that can produced from irrigation dams. It is estimated that agriculture is the socioeconomic activity that uses the most water in the world, in Brazil this amount is around 72%. It is worth mentioning that the installation of a micro hydroelectric plant connected to the electrical system would have an enormous amount of advantages for the owner, who could reduce part of the total value of the energy bill, reducing the cost of production; as well as to the concessionaire, which particularly in the period where energy demand is high due to the pumping of water by electric motors, which could become a means of diminishing the system use. Thus, with the use of geoprocessing software, in this case QGIS, it became possible to consolidate the georeferenced information of all dams above 5 ha of the study area, as well as to estimate the water accumulation capacity and the generation of each water mirror. Also, a survey of the electric distribution network of the western border was carried out aiming at proving the existence of a grid with the buses, thus minimizing interconnection investments. All these data are contained in a geographic information system (GIS). In this work, 2013 dams 5 ha were catalogued. Being 41 over 200 ha, 114 between 100 ha and 200 ha and the remainder between 100 ha. Totalling an amount of hydroelectric potential of 1185 MW. It should be noted that the installation of new products on the market does not require the need for large civil works, since the largest investment is the bus, it is already installed. In fact, investment should be sought in the suitability of the water intake in the bottom channels, siphons and spillways, as well as in hydroelectric conversion equipament.