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Optimum hydropower potential study on nine Brazilian drainage basins using a numerical algorithm

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Abstract

The proportion of hydroelectric participation in the Brazilian electricity matrix stretches beyond 65% of total energy generation, reaching around 248 GW. Much of this comes from the Amazon Basin, where more than half have not yet been explored. With the objective of assisting the development of hydroelectric plants in Brazil and other regions of the world, this study presents a numerical algorithm constructed from Scilab® software to calculate the optimum power for a hydropower plant that maximizes net financial benefits. The algorithm was applied to 57 fluviometric stations in nine drainage basins from different regions of Brazil, enabling the assessment of all relevant parameters for energy generation and economic analysis of hypothetical plants at each station, as well as analysis of the total hydroelectric energy potential of each basin. Energy potential in the studied basins exceeds 2 GW, generating more than 27 TWh/year. The economic results were related to energy, which allowed for a series of discussions about the hydroelectric market in Brazil. Finally, a study was conducted on the correlation between potential and the geometric, hydrological and perennial coefficients of the hydrographic basins. The correlations obtained were not satisfactory since heterogeneous and geographically distant hydrographic basins were used.

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Fig. 1

Source: Adapted from ELETROBRAS (2016b)

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Source: Adapted from Cardoso et al. (2007)

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Source: Santos et al. (2017)

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Acknowledgements

We thank the Coordinator of the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel (Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior, CAPES; in Portuguese) for the given support to Ivan Felipe Silva dos Santos and to the Brazilian National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico, CNPq; in Portuguese), for granting productivity in research scholarship to Prof. Regina Mambeli Barros (PQ2, Process Numbers: 303805/2018-0 and 301986/2015-0).

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  1. Natural Resources Institute, Federal University of Itajubá (UNIFEI - MG), Itajubá, Brazil

    Thais Faria Costa, Geraldo Lúcio Tiago Filho & Rosana Teixeira Miranda

  2. GEER – Renewable Energy Group, Natural Resources Institute, Federal University of Itajubá (UNIFEI - MG), Itajubá, Brazil

    Ivan Felipe Silva dos Santos, Geraldo Lúcio Tiago Filho & Regina Mambeli Barros

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  1. Thais Faria Costa
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Appendix 1: Algorithm developed in Scilab® software

Appendix 1: Algorithm developed in Scilab® software

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Costa, T.F., dos Santos, I.F.S., Tiago Filho, G.L. et al. Optimum hydropower potential study on nine Brazilian drainage basins using a numerical algorithm. Environ Dev Sustain 23, 1729–1758 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10668-020-00648-7

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