Análise do impacto da expansão de novas renováveis no custo de geração de energia elétrica no Brasil

Abstract

The impacts of a large scale of variable renewable sources, i.e. onshore wind and centralized photovoltaic solar, on total electricity generation costs have been discussed in the literature due to their inherent variability. On the one hand, such plants show subhourly variation in the availability of natural resources, which leads to the requirement for compensation from other sources to maintain the electricity supply. On the other hand, they have low and decreasing investment costs and variable operating costs that are close to zero. The objective of this thesis is to analyze how the total electricity generation costs evolve with a large-scale entry of variable renewable sources. The methodology consists of the integration of an expansion planning model with an operating model of the Brazilian electric sector, made through the implementation of residual load duration curves in the expansion model. The results show that total cost can be reduced, concluding that it is feasible to plan an electrical system with high participation of variable renewable sources that takes advantage of their environmental benefits without considerably burdening the total electricity generation costs.