São Paulo – Up to late this year, Pecém port, in Ceará, will be the first in the country to produce electric energy from sea water. It is the installation of the first national prototype for production of electricity from waves. The project belongs to Alberto Luiz Coimbra Institute, of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (Coppe-UFRJ), from Rio de Janeiro, and also promotes desalination of sea water.
Paulo Roberto da Costa, developer of the equipment, says that he researched the generation of electricity from the sea worldwide to develop his own model. He said that the equipment operates using the pressure of the waves, which makes the project different from those already existing. "It operates with very high pressure. You do not need so much water to have power."
To make the concept clearer, Costa, who is a master in oceanic engineering, explains that the pressure generated by the equipment is equivalent to a 500 metre waterfall. "The advantage is that it is not necessary to build a reservoir. The reservoir is the sea itself."
The funds for development of the project came from energy operator Tractebel, which has been operating in Brazil since 1998 and belongs to French group GDF Suez. Investment totalled 12 million Brazilian reals (US$ 7.1 million).
The prototype that is being installed in Ceará is made up of two modules. Together, they should generate 100 kilowatts of electricity, enough to supply 200 houses outside peak time. The onshore equipment operates with the base installed on the shore and arms that stretch into the sea to harvest the pressure of the waves. In the case of Pecém, however, the equipment is set up two kilometres into the sea, at the port’s breakwater.
Regarding desalination, it is the same equipment and, according to Costa, both processes (generation and desalination) may be developed at alternate moments, according to the needs of the site where they are installed.
For the process of separation of water and salt, each module has capacity for the processing of 250,000 litres of water in 24 hours. Purification makes the water ready both for human consumption and for irrigation.
The prototype in Ceará is the first developed by Coppe-UFRJ, but the institute also works on the projects for generation of energy from sea water in deep sea. This project, for example, called attention of companies like Petrobras, which is interested in the generation of electricity to supply their oilrigs. According to Costa, the company has already developed tests for these projects.
It should still take a while for the modules to go into the trading phase, as the tests are only beginning, and the prototype will spend six months monitoring. However, the projects are already being offered to energy generators. "The technology has been presented to energy companies over the last three years, and tests are being developed on new prototypes," according to Costa.
To him, the Arab countries are a potential market for the Brazilian technology. "We have a patent that includes several countries worldwide. We are interested in developing this topic and generating new business." According to the engineer, for generation at platforms in deep sea, the cost of electricity should be around 0.25 Brazilian reals (US$ 0.15) per Kilowatt/hour.
*Translated by Mark Ament
