Brazil Preparing New National Wind Atlas
Wednesday, September 16th, 2009Agência Brasil reports that Eletrobrás‘ Energy Research Center (Centro de Pesquisas de Energia – Cepel) is preparing a new national wind atlas for release in late 2010. Researchers feel that the existing wind atlas, prepared in 2001, may have greatly underestimated Brazil’s potential for electricity generation through wind. At that time, the potential was estimated […]
Brazil Needs to Retool its Energy Efficiency Efforts in Industry
Friday, August 28th, 2009The focus of action of Brazilian government initiatives regarding energy efficiency in industry needs to be adjusted, and if done properly, could result in annual savings as high as R$6.8 billion per year. This is one of the conclusions of the report Energy Efficiency in Industry: What Has Been Done in Brazil, Opportunities to Reduce […]
Toward an ISO Energy Management Standard
Wednesday, August 12th, 2009Last week in Rio de Janeiro and yesterday in São Paulo, Eletrobrás and the Brazilian Association of Technical Standards (ABNT) co-hosted workshops to try to get Brazilian business more actively involved in the process now underway in the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) to develop an international standard for energy management, ISO 50001. One of […]
Brazil Begins Awarding Building Efficiency Labels
Thursday, July 2nd, 2009Earlier this year I posted about Brazil’s trailblazing initiative to provide energy efficiency labels for buildings. Well, the National Institute of Metrology, Standardization and Industrial Quality (Inmetro) has just announced that first five Brazilian buildings were given the labels in the form of steel plaques about the size of an A4 sheet of printing paper. […]
BNDES Funds Wind Power Project in Piauí
Wednesday, May 20th, 2009From the Brazilian Development Bank (BNDES): The BNDES finances renewable energy project in Piauí Pedra do Sal, a wind power plant project, to be conducted under the Brazilian Growth Acceleration Plan, gets R$ 72 million from the Bank The BNDES’ Board of Directors approved a R$ 72 million loan to the wind power plant Pedra […]
A Solar Atlas for Alagoas
Monday, April 20th, 2009Just months after issuing an atlas of its wind power potential, the governor of the small northeastern Brazilian state of Alagoas just formally received an atlas of its solar power potential. The new atlas is the product of a joint effort of the state government, Brazil’s state-controlled utility Eletrobras, and the Federal University of Pernambuco […]
Brazil Proposes Energy Labels for Buildings
Tuesday, March 24th, 2009Yesterday Brazil’s National Institute of Metrology, Standardization and Industrial Quality (Inmetro) published for public comment in the official gazette (the Official Daily of the Union – Diário Oficial da União) a draft administrative rule (portaria) on the award of certification labels for energy efficiency in public, commercial and service buildings. It is supplemented by an […]
A Wind Map for Alagoas
Wednesday, January 14th, 2009A wind atlas has been delivered to the government of the northeastern Brazilian state of Alagoas that was developed by the Curitiba-based Institute of Technology for Development (Instituto de Tecnologia para o Desenvolvimento – Lactec) in cooperation with the Federal University of Alagoas (Ufal) and the firm Camargo Schubert. [Click on the image at right […]
Certifying Efficient Public Lighting
Friday, August 17th, 2007Synopsis in English: Brazil’s certification entity, the National Institute for Meteorology, Standardization and Industrial Quality (Instituto Nacional de Metrologia, Normalização e Qualidade Industrial – INMETRO) recently announced that, starting in 2008, it and the mixed capital (but majority state-owned) electricity distribution company (the largest in Latin America) Eletrobrás a certification and labeling program for the […]
More LAC Wind and Solar Maps
Wednesday, February 28th, 2007A few months back I did a post on what wind and solar power potential maps for the Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) countries could be found on the internet, and promised updates on others as I found them. Well, it might take me awhile to do so, but I usually do come through […]
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