Avaliação do potencial energético e viabilidade financeira da instalação de turbinas hidrocinéticas em rios do Norte do Brasil

Abstract

The development of renewable energy sources is crucial for addressing issues such as greenhouse gas emissions and the depletion of fossil fuel reserves. One form of renewable energy that is still underdeveloped but has significant potential in Brazil is hydrokinetic energy. This dissertation presents a methodology for determining the hydrokinetic potential, electrical potential, and available energy for the purpose of generating electricity through hydrokinetic turbines in rivers in the northern region of the country, as well as an economic feasibility study of this generation method. The methodology utilizes hydraulic and hydrological data from 30 streamflow stations in the northern region, using the database provided by the Hidroweb platform of the National Water and Basic Sanitation Agency (ANA). These data are used to calculate the total energy in each section of the respective streamflow stations through the empirical distribution of velocities and the application of the Weibull distribution. As a result, it was found that the Weibull distribution adequately fits the analyzed stations, with energy results showing discrepancies of less than 5% compared to the energy calculated by the empirical distribution in at least 60% of the analyzed stations. The results demonstrated that the energy potential calculated by Weibull is lower than the empirical one, with only 13% of the stations having Weibull-calculated energy exceeding the empirical calculation. The Tabatinga station achieved the highest calculated energy potential, both by the empirical distribution and the Weibull distribution, and, along with the Cach. Do Samuel Mont. 2 and Manacapuru Montante stations, obtained the best economic results.