New Autonomous Vessel Created By Neoenergia In Portugal Arrives In Brazil To Revolutionize Solid And Liquid Discharge Measurement In Hydroelectric Plants And Rivers

Innovative Project by Neoenergia Has Arrived in Brazil. The Vessel Built in Portugal Was Taken to the Itapebi Hydroelectric Plant in Bahia.

Neoenergia promotes innovation, generating benefits for the electric sector. The company developed an autonomous vessel to measure solid discharges suspended in reservoirs of hydroelectric plants. The autonomous vessel was designed in Portugal as part of a R&D project to automate hydrological monitoring of rivers.

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The need to obtain this data is becoming increasingly important due to erosion and sediment transport issues in rivers. This will increase the precision and safety of sediment sample collection, which is currently done manually worldwide. The project is part of the Research and Development (R&D) Program regulated by the National Electric Energy Agency (Aneel).

Vessel Revolutionizes the Measurement of Solid and Liquid Discharges

The vessel was developed to complement studies conducted with data obtained from another autonomous vehicle dedicated to measuring liquid discharges. These studies are carried out by the Federal University of Juiz de Fora (UFJF) in partnership with the Institute of Engineering Systems and Computers, Technology and Science (INESC TEC) and the University of Porto, Portugal.

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The existing measurement methods will depend on the characteristics of each river – current speed, sediment concentration, and river size. The new equipment can adapt to various rivers and was developed to collect integrated or point sediments across the section, capable of collecting equal volumes of water vertically, ensuring more accurate samples.

“Our project is yielding the development of cutting-edge technologies, benefiting the entire hydroelectric generation segment with the possibility of more precise analyses. This vessel revolutionizes the measurement of solid and liquid discharges, which is essential for understanding reservoir conditions,” states José Paulo Werberich, Superintendent of Operations and Hydraulic Engineering at Neoenergia.

After Testing, the Vessel Built in Portugal Can Be Used at Other Plants Controlled by Neoenergia

These equipment are even more relevant in the current context of water crisis, as they not only provide greater reliability in results for low flows but also allow for safe independent flow recording of the river. All data is recorded on the onboard computer and can be transferred to the company’s information system, facilitating performance analysis, archiving, and historical data consultation.

The vessel has already arrived in Brazil and was taken to the Itapebi Hydroelectric Plant (BA), where it will be tested in field measurements, conducted quarterly, as determined by a joint resolution of Aneel and the National Water and Basic Sanitation Agency (ANA). After testing, the vessel may be used at other hydropower generation assets controlled by the company – Baguari (MG), Baixo Iguaçu (PR), Belo Monte (PA), Corumbá (GO), Dardanelos (MT), and Teles Pires (MT/PA).

The vessel designed in Portugal has its trajectory programmed through geo-referencing, to collect samples at predetermined points in the reservoirs. At these locations, a sampler attached to the autonomous vehicle is launched into the water, capable of reaching depths of up to 20 meters, designed to always position itself along the same vertical line of the river’s cross-section in relation to the vessel, providing more reliability to the work.

Subsequently, the analysis of the captured material can be performed automatically using a microscope developed in the same R&D project. This granulometric analysis – that is, assessing the size of suspended particles – allows for the evaluation of reservoir conditions, such as siltation.

The R&D project built in Portugal, which led to the development of the vessel and the microscope, began in 2017. In addition to this equipment, other technologies were created, such as the vessel developed to measure flow and water quality. Additionally, it was possible to nationalize a geo-referencing technology at a cost approximately ten times lower than the market price.