The following
activities are being planned for the Latin American Regional Energy Initiative
(REI-LA) for year 2005, but may change in the course of the year according to
IEI Board decisions.
For the the Program 2004, click
here.
Global
and regional IEI website restructuring
In order to provide a better integration of information
to the international audience, as well as a better internal management of activities,
the IEI Board (at Nov. 24, 2004 meeting) recommended that IEI consider designing
and implementing a new IEI global portal with access to the Regional Energy
Initiatives (REIs) websites, and also integrating the journal Energy for Sustainable
Development (ESD). REI-LA agreed to take on this task.
As output, IEI will have a global portal with dynamic
content, fast, and capable of providing easy navigation to REIs and ESD information.
IEI
Newsletter
The newsletter provides concise information about
IEI’s main activities, plans, and products and provides a less formal
vehicle for communication complementing IEI’s quarterly peer-reviewed
journal, Energy for Sustainable Development.
REI–LA will continue to prepare and release, supported by REI–Asia
and Board Members, the IEI quarterly Newsletter issues. The fourth issue was
released in January and up to now there are 300 subscribers.
All projects and activities to be developed by the LA-REI will have an information
component which will be consolidated in its webpage. This webpage will be linked
with the main one (www.ieiglobal.org)
managed by the Indian REI.
The maintenance of REI – LA’s webpage
All Information components are being consolidated in the existing webpage. This
website is one of the most important means of communication between REI-Latin
America and general public, in which all past and ongoing activities are described,
as well as its online energy library and forthcoming events.
Energy Library
Continuing cataloguing the online energy library, advertising both the online
and physical library for the general public and acquisition of books. REI–LA
intends to analyse the consistency of the material catalogued so far by giving
a scholarship for an undergraduate student. About 950 documents have been catalogued
so far, representing almost all REI-Latin America’s collection. Most of
them are not available for full-download, but hardcopies.
Training
IEI continues
its efforts in creating and growing indigenous technical and managerial capacity
to promote the efficient production and use of energy for sustainable development.
These efforts consist of fellowship and exchange programmes as well as running
training courses.
Sustainable
Energy Solutions in North and South: partnership with TaTEDO (Tanzania) and
Sweco Grøner (Norway)
From 11/11/2004 to 14/11/2004, the project partners of this exchange project
met in Brazil for their second regular annual meeting. The meeting concluded
that the first one-year exchange (2003-2004) was successful and highly contributed
to achieving the objectives of the partners of laying the foundation for a long-term
cooperation, building staff capacity, cultural understanding and organizational
development. It also met the partners' objectives supporting Norwegian organization,
Fredskorpset, such as creation of contacts and cooperation among individuals
and organizations based on solidarity, equality and reciprocity; reciprocal
learning and promotion of a greater participation of developing countries in
international cooperation.
For this year, two main activities will be carried out: continuation of the
exchange program which is on its second cycle and preparation of joint project
proposals with TaTEDO and Sweco Grøner to apply for funds under the clean
cooking fuels initiative.
Scholarships
REI-Latin America will continue its efforts in building human capacity by supporting
students in their master/doctoral studies. In 2005, three students will be sponsored
by REI-Latin America: Herculano Xavier Junior, Paulo Santana and Herivelto Tiago
Marcondes dos Santos. Mr Xavier will conclude his thesis in July and he is working
with minimum energy efficiency standards for refrigerators. Mr. Santana also
concludes his thesis in July. His work is a more detailed analysis of the energy
R&D Delphi study carried out by the Brazilian Ministry of Science and Technology
with the collaboration of REI-Latin America. Mr. Santana’s work has resulted
in two Energy Discussion Papers which were presented last year in the X Brazilian
Energy Congress. Mr. Santos began his master’s course this year and his
work seeks to identify some features of the compulsory investments being made
in R&D and energy efficiency programs by Brazilian power utilities.
Analysis
The REIs are
undertaking several activities aiming to generate new understanding regarding
the various aspects of energy included in IEI’s mission. These encompass
a broad range of subjects, from supply to energy demand, energy efficiency,
technological foresight and power sector reforms. Reports and papers have been
prepared in which the analysis and conclusions are presented systematically
so that the lessons learnt can be used to aid future action.
Energy Technology
foresight
REI-Latin America has developed analysis activities in Energy Technology Foresight
from the efforts of supporting students in their master thesis. In 2005, the
student Herivelto Tiago Marcondes dos Santos will be working with this activity
sponsored by REI-Latin America. Paulo Santana is expected to complete his dissertation
by July/2005 (see training activities).
Since 2000, due to power sector reforms in Brazil and the introduction of competition
between power utilities, new investments in R&D and energy efficiency have
been favored. Mr. Santos will analyze the R&D investments made by Brazilian
power utilities, as well as specify institutional characteristics of power utilities
and research institutions (university, foundations and others) and their demand
by area.
Collaborative
activities with Latin American partners
Following the
study evaluating the Argentinean power sector reforms in the nineties via-à-vis
public benefits produced in 2003 (available in the website), the report “Power
Sector Reforms in Peru and its Implications in Universal Electrification and
Deployment of Renewable Energy” is being carried out.
At present, figures show that the level of electrification in Peru is only 75%.
The remaining 25% is represented by 7 million households that do not currently
count on affordable modern energy. This report seeks to assess the behavior
of the process of reforms introduced in the power sector and whether it has
had a positive or negative influence on the process of accessing electricity
throughout the territory, which has been declared as of national electricity
necessity and public good by Law N° 27744. Particular consideration will
be given to access initiatives concerning the role of renewables in off-grid
applications.
Methodology
to integrate the generation and choice of energy technologies in rural areas
Paper to be
published whose objective is to integrate two distinct methodologies to generate
and select “appropriate” energy technology in rural areas.
Developed countries are responsible for the majority of the worldwide R&D
capacity and for this reason new technologies and new productive methods are
introduced by these countries to match the needs of their societies. On the
other hand, the Science and Technology systems of developing countries do not
reflect satisfactorily the needs of the traditional and rural sectors, especially
regarding their energy needs, in which significant part of the rural and poor
population is concentrated.
The Brazilian
experience in creating a market for sugarcane-derived ethanol fuel: a Fredskorpset
exchange output
Understanding
Brazil’s success in introducing ethanol provides important lessons toward
cleaner fuel sustainable use in other economies, especially in Latin America.
Rodolfo Gomes, under the supervision of Mr. Jonas Sandgren (from Sweco Grøner
and responsible in Norway for the exchange program) prepared in November 2003
a report commissioned by the Ministry of Transport and Communications of Norway
on the Brazilian experience using sugarcane-derived ethanol as a transport fuel
as an input for the Ministry’s work on a white paper on hydrogen. A paper
will be prepared based on this report to be submitted for publication in ESD,
co-authored with Mr. Jonas Sandgren.
Sustainable
markets for LPG and ethanol
Brazil over
the past 50 years has had the experience of implementing public policies and
directing public and private efforts towards the creation of new energy markets.
This has been the case of LPG and ethanol fuel.
In 1960, LPG had 18% saturation level amongst households and in 2002 is accessible
by 98% of all Brazilian households (42 million) and 93 % of rural households.
In the case of ethanol-fueled cars, from 1977 to 1984, its participation in
the car market production rose from barely zero to 94,4%.
The REI-LA director will write an article preliminarily named “Policies
for creating new markets for new fuels: the case of LPG and ethanol in Brazil”,
whose objectives are to present an overview of the context and articulation
of public policies and private interests in creating a sustainable market for
fuels; to present the main factors that may explain the chosen successful cases
and discuss how public policies can have similar impacts nowadays.
Sustainable
markets for LPG and ethanol
As an output
of the "Sustainable energy solutions in North and South" partnership,
an analysis on clean cooking fuels was carried out by Godfrey Sanga, an exchange
student from Tanzania who was awarded a master’s degree (UNICAMP) in December
as a result of this analysis. The work involves studies on international experience
on household cooking fuel inter-substitution and development of alternative
means to improve the household cooking through clean fuels and energy efficiency
in Tanzania.
Sustainable
markets for LPG and ethanol
For 3 years REI-Latin America is carrying out a research about the possibility
of implementing minimum energy efficiency standards for the most common one-door
Brazilian domestic refrigerators. This project was co-funded by the International
Energy Agency, Collaborative Labelling Appliance Program (CLASP) and Foundation
for Research Assistance of the State of São Paulo (FAPESP).
Herculano Xavier Junior will propose as his thesis’ results new minimum
energy efficiency standards for refrigerators, analyzing possible technological
advances aiming at increasing public benefits. The thesis will be focused in
engineering economy analysis and Life Cycle Cost Analysis (establishing innovation
costs to manufacturers and consumers) aiming at finding the optimal minimum
energy efficiency standard for refrigerator to the consumers. This thesis will
be presented for final examination in July of 2005.
Advocacy
Events to be
sponsored by REI - LA in 2005: PRONERG
In 2001, the
Brazilian Ministry of Science and Technology (MCT) created the Programme for
South American Cooperation Support in Science and Technology – PROSUL,
whose objective is to support cooperative activities in Science and Technology
(S&T) in South America in order to contribute to the sustainability of scientific
and technological development of the region.
Under this program, aiming to discuss a possible research agenda in energy topics
that can be undertaken cooperatively between Brazil and South American partners,
a meeting gathering energy experts from South America will be held in Brazil
in June 2005. The event is called PRONERG. Researchers, energy companies and
governmental officials will participate in the event. Experts will be invited
to prepare and present papers about specific energy R&D topics. This event
is largely sponsored by the Brazilian Science and Research Council's PROSUL
program.
The REI-LA director is the coordinator of PRONERG and REI-LA office is responsible
for its organization together with the Centre for Energy Planning Studies of
the University of Campinas. The importance of REI-Latin America participation
is to help promoting such cooperative energy R&D activities in the region.
Lectures on
Energy and Sustainable Development
REI-Latin America
will organize presentations to be made by energy experts on actual and worthwhile
subjects related to promoting the production and use of energy services for
sustainable development.
Assistance to
the Energy R&D Strategy Working Group
The REI-LA director
will assist the South African Government’s Department of Science and Technology
and Department of Minerals and Energy as a member of the Energy R&D Strategy
Working Group in order to contribute to the creation of South Africa’s
energy R&D policy.
Action
Demonstration
site on solar and wind power
The project involves performance monitoring of a hybrid system and collection
of data from meteorological data collection equipment. One undergraduate student
from the Mechatronics course, Mr. Rafael Nema, is enrolled in this project under
REI-La director supervision.
REI–LA has joined efforts to a Brazilian technological company which is
developing wind turbine for rural areas to undertake cooperative research and
share resources. The system will be placed in another site where the wind speed
is higher and more stable. And a new building is necessary to be built. Applications
for university grants, aiming also to use the demonstration site as a laboratory
for students, will be prepared to fund the project.
This project involves performance monitoring of a solar PV-wind turbine hybrid
system and collection of data from a meteorological station installed in the
State University of Campinas (UNICAMP), Brazil. The objective is to analyze
its performance and investigate its possibilities as a distributed generation
system for small consumers, serving as a basis for energy planning studies,
including: techno-economic potential and incentive/diffusion, regulation and
tariff policies. The data collected from this project have been used by two
graduated master students and two scientific initiation undergraduates so far.
Furthermore, a local producer of wind turbines is interested to participate
in a joint project with REI-LA using the existing installation.
The hybrid system is consisted by a 500W wind turbine and 4 PV panels of 48Wp.
To monitor and analyze its performance, a meteorological station was installed
to measure the solar radiation, temperature, wind speed and direction.
Distributed generation (DG) has been viewed as a way of which can lower costs,
improve reliability, reduce emissions, or expand their energy options. DG may
add redundancy that increases grid security even while powering emergency lighting
or other critical systems. Furthermore, DG is already more competitive in some
niche markets such as rural or isolated areas than the grid extension.
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