Search

Open water transposition channels in hot and arid regions, like those in the São Francisco River Integration Project (PISF) in Brazil, suffer significant water losses through evaporation. This paper proposes covering these channels with photovoltaic (PV) panels to reduce evaporation while simultaneously generating clean energy. The research aims to quantify water savings and energy generation potential across all channel lengths and assess whether the generated solar power can substitute grid electricity for powering the transposition pumps during peak hours, thereby enhancing energy efficiency. This study analyzed the state-of-the-art of PV generation and calculated their solar potential. Identified the specific characteristics of PISF channels and watercourses considering the regional geography, meteorology, irradiation, and social peculiarities. And, finally, assessed the feasibility of covering the watercourses with solar panels. The results reveal that covering all current PISF channels with PV panels could save up to 25,000 cubic meters of water per day, significantly contributing to water security and improving the quality of life for the local population. Additionally, the project could generate 1200 gigawatt-hours of electricity annually, meeting the energy demands of the transposition pumps during peak hours and promoting energy efficiency within the project. This research paves the way for utilizing PV technology to address water scarcity challenges and enhance the sustainability of water infrastructure projects in arid regions worldwide. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on an analysis of the energy mix profile and energy efficiency of the Brazilian dairy industry. It investigates dairies’ energy mix and energy efficiency and identifies some actions for a cleaner energy mix. Primary data from 37 dairy cheese-making establishments distributed among the Brazilian regions were obtained from online surveys. The results indicate that woodfuel plays a critical role, being the most used fuel in thermal energy generation, while diesel is dominant in electric generation. It also emphasizes that only 51% of the dairy establishments utilize electric energy generators. Other alternative biomass sources are still incipient in the sector, restricted to just 9.5% of the cases for thermal energy generation and no cases for electricity. Regarding the energy efficiency analysis, the results suggest dairies are more scale efficient than pure technical efficient. However, the dairies present a low energy efficiency level. There is no evidence that inefficiencies are differently distributed according to their size. These findings are important for government agencies, industry associations, scientists, universities and research institutes. High inefficiencies, regarding the use of electricity and thermal energy, are a key issue in sustainable bioenergy production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rate of technological progress is an important metric used for predicting the energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions of future light-duty fleets. A trade-off between efficiency and performance is essential due to its implications on fuel consumption and efficiency improvement. These values are not directly available in the Brazilian fleet. Hence, this is the main gap in knowledge that has to be overcome. Tendencies in all relevant parameters were also unknown, and we have traced them as well, established on several publications data and models. We estimate the three indicators mentioned above for the Brazilian fleet from 1990 to 2020. Although the rate of technological progress was lower in Brazil than that in developed countries, it has increased from 0.39% to 0.61% to 1.7% to 1.9% in subsequent decades. Performance improvements offset approximately 31% to 39% of these efficiency gains. Moreover, the vehicle market is shifting toward larger vehicles, thus offsetting some efficiency improvements. We predict the fleet fuel efficiency for the years 2030 and 2035 using the above-mentioned factors. The predicted values for efficiency can vary by a factor of two. Thus, trade-off policies play a vital role in steering toward the desired goals of reducing the transportation sector's impact on the environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: Considering Brazil an important player in the global market for the electricity production from solar sources and the recent investments in large power plants through public policies, this work evaluated a very large‐scale commercial photovoltaic power plant (VLS‐PVPP) performing an attributional life cycle assessment (LCA) in accordance with ISO 14040/44 standards. The comparative results obtained, for 18 impact categories, show that the use of global data tends to overestimate the impacts of energy production in the VLS‐PVPP implemented in Brazil, by at least double. When establishing scenarios for different regions of the Brazilian territory, the energy performance and emissions indicators used varied around 17% due to the high sensitivity of the solarimetric radiation index in the modeling. The carbon footprint ranged between 38.3 and 44.8 kgCO2eq/kWh, and the energy payback time (EPBT) ranged between 4.5 and 5.3 years. The fossil energy replacement ratio (FER) indicator was calculated to quantify the power plant sustainability, which, in the best scenario, showed that the system replenishes, with clean energy, 7.7 times the fossil energy used in its construction. The sensitivity study associated with the uncertainty analysis for the manufacturing location of photovoltaic modules showed little influence (about 1%) on these indicators, showing that the decision to import or manufacture PV modules does not involve an environmental bias, overturning this hypothesis. Furthermore, the sensitivity study of the photovoltaic modules showed that the multicrystalline silicon technology is still the best choice compared to the monocrystalline one, since the latter increased the environmental cost of the evaluated indicators by 20%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]