With private companies and utilities, LABSOLAR has also been carrying out research and demonstration projects aiming at investigating scientific aspects, and at the same time disseminating the use of PV in Brazil. One of such partners is the national oil company PETROBRAS (www. petrobras. com. br), with whom LABSOLAR is in the process of installing what will be the largest grid-connected PV system in Brazil, a 44.4kWp system using six thin-film PV model types from different manufacturers [7], as shown in Figure 11, and two petrol stations with 10kWp of BIPV modules each. Also shown in Figure 11 is the recently dedicated oil pumping project, where PV is being used for the first time in the country to deliver power to an oil pumping system in the northeast, where PETROBRAS explores a great number of small and scattered oil wells, and where PV might be the least cost option.

Figure 11: Examples of PV projects carried out by LABSOLAR in cooperation with private companies. Left top and bottom shows the PETROBRAS building and a schematic of the 44.4kWp roof mounted thin-film installation; top right shows the PV oil pumping project with PETROBRAS, and bottom right shows one of the BIPVprojects with CELESC.

With the state utility CELESC (www. celesc. com. br), and with the neighbour state utility CEMIG (www. cemig. com. br), LABSOLAR has also cooperation agreements that involve education and training on PV, as well as scientific and demonstration projects. One example is shown in Figure 11 (bottom right). In this project three identical 1.4kWp BIPV systems were recently installed together with CELESC at different climatic conditions around the state, to study the behaviour of these installations, in which a certain degree of architectural vs. output performance compromise was reached. With these two utilities, LABSOLAR is carrying out a study on the Effective Load Carrying Capacity (ELCC) of PV, aiming at identifying, especially in urban areas and strained distribution networks with loads that “follow the sun”, the sites where grid-connected PV would lead to the highest benefits in terms of grid reliability, grid support, distribution system avoided costs, and other benefits that installing PV generators strategically in the urban environment might have, on top of the photogenerated energy itself. This study will lead to one M. Sc. and one Ph. D. thesis currently under way and partially sponsored by these utilities.

Conclusions

A sample of the most relevant projects carried out by LABSOLAR has been presented. All these projects include both a scientific and a PV dissemination component, and undergraduate, as well as postgraduate, students are always involved. With these continuing efforts LABSOLAR aims at promoting photovoltaics in Brazil.

Acknowledgments

The author acknowledges with thanks the support of the Alexander von Humboldt-Stiftung (AvH), Agencia Nacional de Energia Eletrica (ANEEL), Centrais Eletricas de Santa Catarina (CELESC), Companhia Energetica de Minas Gerais (CEMIG), Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Cientlfico e Tecnologico (CNPq), the Brazilian Ministry of Mines and Energy (MME), the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) and Petroleo Brasileiro (PETROBRAS) for the research grants which allowed LABSOLAR to carry out most of the projects described in this paper.

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