July 28
Tractebel Energia visit

Today was the first real day of our trip. Dina handed us off to Roderigo, another ISA representative, and sent us on our way, leaving the hotel by 9:30 this morning. After driving for about three hours (mais ou menos, I felt asleep and didn't really look at the clock) our bus arrived in Capivari de Baixo, home to the Jorge Lacerda Thermoelectric Complex, a power station managed by Tractebel Energia, a Brazilian firm under the global energy company GDF Suez. Prior to eating lunch, we were given a short tour of Capivari de Baixo's environmental park. This area was once a dump-site for charcoal, ash, and other waste kicked out by burning fossil fuels. Tractebel paid for the rehabilitation of the site, cleaning the soil and planting almost 35,000 trees. This 50-acre park contains 3.5 km of walking trails, a 380 seat theatre, a large playground for children, and a classroom, all free for the community of Capivari de Baixo. Some of the history of the power plant is preserved in this park, as old plant components, made obsolete when Brazil standardized its electrical grid to operate at 60 Hz, are displayed at the park's entrance.

Before we went into the thermoelectric complex itself, we were given a tour of the site's research and development facility, where engineers from Tractebel partner with researchers from the Federal University of Santa Catarina to study sustainable energy technologies. This facility consists of a 3 MW capacity solar power plant and a 2.1 MW capacity wind turbine. This R&D venture has been in operation since 2013 and features 3 types of photovoltaic setups: 2 thin-film technologies and 1 crystalline silicon cell rig. Each type of photovoltaic cell has a capacity of 1 MW, however this capacity is really only reached at midday in the summer. The goal of this project is to determine which technology makes the most sense, from an economic and a power capacity viewpoint, for Tractebel Energia to invest in for the future. The engineers told us that so far the crystalline silicon technology is producing more power year round, but at a higher cost than either thin-film set-up. Moving forward, Tractebel plans to install a large photovoltaic based power plant in Northern Brazil, much closer to the equator and therefore exposed to significantly more solar radiance for the entire year.

Tractebel Energia's solar and wind power R&D field

A few things of note about Tractebel's solar power plant... The most efficient angle for a panel table to be incline is the angle of latitude for that area. For Tractebel, this angle is 28° , however this angle was reduced to 20° so that the shadow of one table won't interfere with the bottom of the table behind it. Secondly there are no batteries or any energy storage capacity at the site, so it can only contribute power to the grid when the weather is cooperating. Finally, the station manager, Fabian, said that by the summer, they will buy 2 sheep to keep the grass cut.

Fora do Complexo Termelétrico Jorge Lacerda

The final part of our tour took us to the control room for 2 of the coal-fired generators on the premise (there are 7 in total). The plants opened in 1979, and although the instruments and measurement devices have evolved over time, the basic crew remained the same: 6 workers to run a power plant -- 2 to read the panels, 2 to make split second decisions, and 2 workers to leave the room to investigate on-site issues. The control panel operator, Vilmar, spoke English well and explained the purpose of the instruments. He explained to us that a good deal of information about the boiler can be obtained using a microphone inside the tower. A working generator will sound a certain way, whereas a damaged boiler will emit a different sound. The microphone picks this up and lets the control room know that something is wrong so they can shut down the process for maintenance before any real damage can be done. Vilmar also confessed to us that one of his dreams was to talk about his job in English and was very enthusiastic to answer all of our questions. He even gave each of us a copy of his magazine "Bons e Novos" (Things good and new).