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Curitiba Now With Solar Plant Installed on Old Landfill. Project With Thousands of Solar Panels Aims to Generate 30% Savings for Public Agencies.
Curitiba is contributing to sustainability with a new solar plant installed on the Caximba landfill, which was deactivated in 2010. Called a solar pyramid, due to its unusual shape, the project has an installed capacity of 4.55 MW and was inaugurated last Wednesday (29) on the city’s 330th anniversary.
New Solar Plant Will Bring 30% Savings on Electricity Bills for Public Buildings
The project is part of the Curitiba More Energy, one of the city government strategies to combat and reduce climate change through clean energy generation. The city will reduce the emission of two thousand tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, thus contributing to achieving greenhouse gas reduction targets.
The initiative will also bring savings to public coffers, as the energy generated by the solar panels of the solar plant is injected into the distribution network of the Companhia Paranaense de Energia Elétrica (Copel), and the value is deducted from the city’s electricity bill.
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The estimated savings per month are 30% off the electricity bill for Curitiba’s public buildings, which could represent R$ 2.65 million per year, which can be reverted into benefits for the population.
With almost 8,600 solar panels, the Caximba Solar Pyramid is the first solar plant installed on a landfill in Latin America. According to Marcelo Abuhamad, commercial director of Grupo Bono Energia, a solar energy engineering and project company, it is a highly complex project that required extensive technical studies from the engineering team, especially to overcome terrain and soil obstacles in a photovoltaic system that had never been implemented before in Brazil.
Solar Plant on Landfill in Curitiba Involves Investment of R$ 28 Million
It took about 2 years of analysis and development to arrive at a safe and efficient project. According to the specialist, the plant becomes a reference for sustainable project and environmental development on landfills for other municipalities and private enterprises managing waste disposal and treatment in the country. For the solar plant on the landfill to be built, an investment of R$ 28 million was made, resulting from several partnerships.
The return on investment is estimated to be approximately 5 years. Selected by the C40 cities network and counting on resources from the Cities Finance Facility (CFF) of C40 for development, the project with solar panels follows the Distributed Generation rules of the National Electric Energy Agency (Aneel).
Solar Energy Project Presented at Event
The solar panel project also received support from the C40 Cities Network for Climate Leadership and the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH, which supports municipalities in developing projects aimed at reducing polluting emissions and curbing global temperature rise.
The incentive program is funded by the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development of Germany (BMZ), the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), and the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy of the United Kingdom (BEIS).
The project for the solar plant on the landfill in Curitiba was highlighted at the Smart City Expo Curitiba 2023, the largest smart cities event in Brazil, held last month in the capital of Paraná. It is worth noting that, although the state does not have one of the best energy potentials in the country, the region still ranks 4th in the state ranking of distributed generation according to Aneel.
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