Rio de Janeiro – Brazilian oil company Petrobras started testing an equipment capable of measuring the speed and direction of offshore wind. The BRAVO technology is a remote offshore wind energy assessment buoy made in Brazil. Pictured, offshore wind energy generation in the United States.
BRAVO is being developed with funds from power regulator Aneel in partnership with the SENAI Innovation Institute for Renewable Energies (ISI-ER) and Embedded Systems (ISI-SE). The project, which started in 2021 and is expected to last two years, will see a total investment of BRL 9 million (USD 2 million). The use of domestic equipment will allow a 40% cost cut compared to hiring it from other countries.
Besides measuring wind speed and direction, BRAVO can process atmospheric pressure, air temperature, and relative humidity, as well as information on sea waves and currents. The buoy was set off the coast of Rio Grande do Norte, and for the next seven months it’ll allow access to locally collected data via Bluetooth, Wi-Fi or satellite. Its energy is supplied via photovoltaic modules and wind turbines, so that it is self-sufficient.
The information collected by BRAVO will be compared to those processed by an optical sensor embedded in Areia Branca’s salt offshore terminal, which is capable of measuring the wind speed and direction from 10 to 200 meters high. This will allow for measuring the accuracy of the new technology.
Translated by Guilherme Miranda
