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Currently, Casa dos Ventos has a solar measurement station in practically all of its wind complexes and the Sol da Babilônia Sur and Centro projects will be its first hybrid assets.The Brazilian developer Casa dos Ventos intends to begin the construction of two solar projects for a total of 300 MW associated with two wind complexes in Bahia by the end of the year. These are the Babilônia Sul projects, of 360 MW, already in operation, and Babilônia Centro, of 553 MW, under construction. Solar Babilônia Centro will have 200 MW and Solar Babilônia Sul, 100 MW. The solar plants will share a contract for the use of the transmission system and have recently been granted access, the companys Director of Solar Development Engineering, Guilherme Castro, told pv magazine.
“Typically, the most competitive solar assets are not going to be in the best wind regions. On the other hand, if you have a wind farm in an area with favorable characteristics for solar, it can be interesting. It is counterintuitive in the logic of development to start with solar. It makes more sense to have a competitive wind farm and optimize the use of the solar connection,” said Castro, in his speech at the Greener Summit 2024, held on May 7 and 8 in São Paulo.
The energy from the plants must be used for self-production, a model that has made new projects viable in a scenario of low short-term energy prices on the free market.
Proper sizing of hybrid plants
Despite the advantage of sharing the transportation contract, the risk of plant cuts must be carefully weighed, says Castro, since in this model the generation of sources is limited to the amount of use of the transportation system (MUST ) hired. “Naturally, if there is a limit, there may be spills, so solar sizing is a sensitive point,” said the executive. “But for those who have wind assets, solar can be a good opportunity to improve the performance of their assets, for example, and also for solar developers looking for partners who dont necessarily want to go solar,” he adds.
Casa dos Ventos installed its first solar measurement tower in 2015, already studying the possibility of hybridization with its wind assets. “We now have metering in virtually all of our wind farms,” Castro says.
Another point of attention is to calculate the impact of shading from wind turbines, which can be avoided by distancing the solar plants, since in Brazil there is greater availability of land. However, a challenge that has not yet been completely resolved is the sizing of the intermittent shading of the wind turbine blades, which are always in motion. Some companies have considered figures of towers with a globe or a disk in their studies, he adds.
The alternative of mitigating spills with the use of batteries has not yet paid off, but it is getting closer, says Castro. “Hybrid plants have the counterpart of cuts, but if a good engineering project has been carried out and it has been dimensioned well, these cuts tend to be less frequent and very seasonal. The battery could help deliver flat power, but in our analysis at the current battery price it is still not worth optimizing. But there is an acceleration in the fall in costs that could make the alternative viable,” said the manager of Casa dos Ventos at the event organized by Greener. |
