LEGAL FRAMEWORK FOR ENERGY TRADE IN HYBRID SOLAR SUGAR ALCOHOL POWER PLANTS

Abstract

The use of renewable energy sources in agro-industrial systems has been an alternative in the energy transition process. In the energy market, the main requirement for select the type of generation still the cost. The objective of this work was to demonstrate the energetic performance of 4 models of hybrid heliothermic systems, coupled to a sugar and alcohol power plant, operating in the current energy market through trade the energy generated in excess of consumption. The System Advisor Model (SAM) was used in the simulations to obtain the energy performance and the levelized cost of energy (LCoE). The cases were sized to meet the consumption load of a sugar and alcohol power plant, operating in response to the solar resource. The hybridization of CSP generation systems with available biomass during part of the year, contributes to have a good number of capacity factor. In the CSP-Hybrid case, the wide availability of biomass, associated with the solar resource, had a positive influence on the LCoE values. The Golden Tower case presented satisfactory generation values that increased the possibility of exploring the energy market. The current energy trade model allows a range of contractual possibilities to be realized. Generation systems that operate with two different sources enable better levels of delivery security and minimize risks, which contributed to the formulation of the energy contract. The obstacles in the current energy market are possible to be solved by energy public policies; in order to leverage the competitiveness of CSP technology related to the others sources.