The project will be the first of its kind to come into operation since 2019
The São Roque hydroelectric plant, in the state of Santa Catarina, should start operating in the second half of June. The information is provided by Nova Participações SA, owner of the enterprise. With 141.9 MW of power —equivalent to 1% of Itaipu’s power—, it will be the first hydroelectric plant to come into operation since 2019.
Since then, the entry into operation of generation from hydroelectric sources in the country had been restricted to CGHs (Hydroelectric Generating Plants) and PCHs (Small Hydroelectric Plants), with up to 30 MW.
Located on the Canoas River, between the municipalities of Are José do Cerrito e Vargem, the plant will supply energy to the free market, formed by large industrial consumers, until 2025. From then on, it will serve the so-called regulated market, served by energy distributors. The hydroelectric plant will have the capacity to serve around 400,000 households.
According to Nova Participações, on Thursday (May 5, 2022), the Santa Catarina Environment Institute (IMA) authorized the plant to fill the reservoir, which started to be done this Friday (May 6). The reservoir should reach its maximum quota on the weekend, May 7th and 8th, which will allow the anticipation of the testing phase.
According to Aneel (National Electric Energy Agency), the first generating plant is expected to start operating in September. But the entrepreneur said it will be possible to anticipate it. Total investments were R$ 1.1 billion.
The increase in water power had a sudden drop
The addition of power from water sources has dropped sharply in recent years. To give you an idea, in 2019, the most recent year with the start of operation of hydroelectric plants, the aggregate power to the SIN (National Interconnected System) was 4,951 MW against 65 MW this year, until April.
Here is the performance of the last 10 years:
The best performances from 2016 to 2019 are due to the start-up of large hydroelectric plants, such as Belo Monte, Santo Antônio and Jirau.
For this year, another 11 hydroelectric projects are expected to start operating, 2 of which are CGHs and 9 SHPs. In total, they will add 165.8 MW of power.
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