Análise da complementaridade da geração eólico-solar de uma usina de geração híbrida no litoral cearense

Abstract

It is evident that there has been exponential growth in the installed capacity from renewable energy sources in Brazil's energy matrix over the past decades, especially from wind and solar power. This growth is justified by Brazil's significant wind and solar potential, particularly in the northeastern region, which in recent years has received numerous investments in projects aimed at harnessing the abundance of these resources to generate clean energy. However, this massive expansion of renewable energy in Brazil's energy matrix, with a focus on solar and wind, both of which have intermittent behavior, tends to make it more vulnerable to weather and climate variability and unpredictability. Addressing this issue, this study aims to analyze the topology of Hybrid Power Plants, combining wind and solar power plants, to mitigate the impacts of this challenge through the complementary behavior of these sources. As such, a 2.4 MW wind farm and a 400.33 kWp solar photovoltaic power plant, both located in Beberibe-CE on the Ceará coast, were used as the study objects. The plants are connected to the low voltage grid in parallel at the transformer of one of the wind turbines, which in turn is also connected to the medium voltage grid, thereby allowing this integration to be considered a Hybrid Wind-Solar Power Plant. In this context, access was obtained to the electricity generation history of both plants, but the analysis was hindered by the limited solar photovoltaic electricity production history and a six-month gap in the wind electricity generation data during the same period. To address this issue, a linearized historical projection algorithm was developed to estimate the missing values, enabling a comparative analysis of wind and solar electricity generation between 2021 and 2024. The analyses showed that solar generation predominates in the first half of the year, while wind generation is stronger in the second half. Additionally, the integration of the plants into a hybrid system mitigated the intermittency of seasonal wind and solar patterns in the first half and boosted the already strong electricity generation in the second half, resulting in an average annual electricty generation increase of 30%. It was concluded that the implementation of Hybrid wind-solar Power Plants in Brazil should be encouraged, as they promote significant gains in efficiency and productivity, in addition to contributing to a more stable and reliable National Interconnected System and energy matrix, less affected by the intermittency of renewable sources.