Renewable Energy 35 (2010) 2921e2932

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Renewable Energy
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Technical Note

A GIS-based decision support tool for renewable energy management and planning in semi-arid rural environments of northeast of Brazil
C. Tiba a, *, A.L.B. Candeias b, N. Fraidenraich a, E.M. de S. Barbosa a, P.B. de Carvalho Neto c, J.B. de Melo Filho c
a b c

Departamento de Energia Nuclear da Universidade Federal de Pernambuco, Av. Prof. Luiz Freire, 1000 e CDU, CEP 50.740-540, Recife, Pernambuco, Brazil Departamento de Engenharia Cartogrca da Universidade Federal de Pernambuco, Av. Acadmico Helio Ramos, s/n - CDU, Recife, Pernambuco, Brazil Companhia Hidro Eltrica do So Francisco eDTG- CHESF, Recife, Pernambuco, Brazil

a r t i c l e i n f o
Article history: Received 18 February 2010 Accepted 7 May 2010 Available online 19 June 2010 Keywords: GIS Planning and management Photovoltaic energy Rural electrication biomass Wind energy

a b s t r a c t
This work describes the development of a management and planning system on a GIS (Geographic Information System) platform destined to decision makers that is, administrators, planners or consultants in renewable energies. It was conceived to deal with the management and planning of solar systems, biomass and aeolics in rural regions of Brazil. The prototype of the GIS tool covers an area of 183, 500 km2 and is made up of three blocks: management of installed renewable systems, inclusion (planning) of new systems and updating of the data banks. The GISA SOL 1.0 (Geographic Information System Applied to Solar Energy) has a total of 80 layers of information that permit the realization of spatial analyses on management and planning of renewable sources of energy at macro-spatial (state) and local (municipality) levels. A description and the methodology used for its development and a description of the functionalities will be made here. The system was developed mainly for PV systems as a support tool for management and planning of the Energy Development Program for States and Municipalities (PRODEEM), a program for inclusion in large scale of solar photovoltaic energy in the rural environment, conducted by the Ministry of Mines and Energy of Brazil. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

1. Introduction 1.1. Program of energy development for states and municipalitiesePRODEEM The Northeast of Brazil, made up of 8 states, represents 18% of the total area of the country, is responsible for 16% of the production and has a population of 42,000,000 (28%). Approximately half of this area, 760,000 km2, is semi-arid where 17,000,000 people live. The climate of this region is hot and dry having a mean annual temperature of 27  C and 2500 h/year of insolation. The annual precipitation varies from 400 to 800 mm, contrasting with an evapotranspiration of 2500 mm/year, which determines a dry period of more than 7 months. The vegetation that covers the semi-arid region is deciduous tropical forest, locally known as the caatinga, which develops over a complex mosaic of

soils, Fig. 1. High level of insolation, scarce hydric resources and rare rainfall, poorly distributed over time, cause long periods of drought. Thus, the relative shortage of supercial hydric resources, makes evident the importance of subterranean waters. The exploration of these waters is found to be limited because of the nature of its soils (predominantly crystalline), low discharge rate (mean of 3000 l/h) and mainly its quality. The great majority of the wells present higher salinity indices than the maximum limit permitted for human consumption, which is of 1000 ppm of dissolved total solids and in many cases above 6000 ppm, the extreme water salinity level for animal consumption. Another aggravating factor that makes the solution to the problem of water supply difcult is the low index of rural electrication in the Northeast. To face this kind of challenge, the Federal Government established the PRODEEM e Program of Energy Development for States and Municipalities through a presidential decree in December 1994, with the following objectives: - Make viable the installation of energy microsystems for production and local use in isolated needy communities that

* Corresponding author. Tel.: 55 81 21268252; fax: 55 81 2126 8250. E-mail address: tiba@ufpe.br (C. Tiba). 0960-1481/$ e see front matter Published by Elsevier Ltd. doi:10.1016/j.renene.2010.05.009

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Fig. 1. The Caatinga in dry and rainy periods and details of vegetation.

are not served by electric network, that are destined to aid in attending basic social demands; - Promote the utilization of decentralized energy sources in the supply of energy to the small producers, settlers and isolated populations; - Compliment the conventional energy system offer with the use of decentralized renewable energy sources;

- Promote the utilization of human resources and development of technology and national industry, essential for implantation and operational continuity of the implanted systems. Since the year 1996 PRODEEM has bought and installed thousands of photovoltaic systems that are spread around the national territory. In the phases denominated I to V and a special

Fig. 2. Settlement of landless people called Gualter, in the municipality of Canind of So Francisco in Alagoas, after the construction of the water supply system.

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Fig. 3. Productive applications in community with photovoltaic solar energy: electric fence and school.

one denominated Pumping, three kinds of autonomous photovoltaic systems were installed: photovoltaic systems for generation of electric energy (energetic), photovoltaic systems for pumping water and for public illumination. The systems were only destined for application in communities, which means that they should benet the communities as a whole, and not only some individuals in particular. The total of photovoltaic systems installed in this program was 8956, corresponding to a total power of 5.2 MWe, and it can be considered as one of the largest rural electrication programs that use photovoltaic solar energy in developing countries. Most of the photovoltaic systems were installed in the North and Northeast regions, 1471 and 4577 systems respectively. In the target regions of this project AL, PE and PB 905 systems were installed, in accordance with the MME Electric Energy Atlas [1]. Fig. 2 shows the settlement of the landless people called Gualter, in the municipality of Canind of So Francisco in Alagoas, after the construction of the water supply system all supplied by photovoltaic solar energy: the water supply system, the collective laundry and the drinking trough for animals. Fig. 3 shows some other productive applications in the community with photovoltaic solar energy: electried fence and school.

The experience accumulated by PRODEEM in the last ten years shows the enormous challenge of management, planning, training and sociology of the implantation, on a large scale and in large territorial extensions, of innovating technology and decentralized technology as of photovoltaic generation. The traditional tools demonstrate their limitations and make the execution of such tasks very difcult.

1.2. What is GIS and why? The GIS (Geographic Information System) is a tool for computational treatment of geographical data and their associated data banks. It can be seen as a support system for decisions that unite spatially referenced data in a problem response environment. GIS groups, bring together and unite information. Through this, available information becomes more accessible, and old information is put into a new context. In this project, the GIS were used as a tool that permits the integration and processing of information from diverse sources. From this it is possible to use it in the elaboration of strategies for implantation and management of rural electrication with renewable energy.

Fig. 4. Fluxogram of project development, planning module.

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Fig. 5. Principal menu of the GISA SOL 1.0.

The GIS is a valuable tool for evaluation and development of the use of renewable energy resources in large regions, because it is a tool that is specially adequate for analyzing the spatial variabilities of the resource as well as also for resolving problems of management and planning of installation programs of decentralized systems, that are characterized by a great spatial dispersion. The solar resource is strongly inuenced by altitude, latitude and phytogeographical conditions; the aeolic resource for rugosity and topography of land and nally the biomass for its soil characteristic and pluviometric conditions. In its turn, management and planning of renewable energy systems, is a task that besides knowledge on energy resource needs knowledge on the nearest technical assistance center, a diagnosis of the most frequent defects, information from installed systems, the proximity to electric transmission lines, the energy demand, the laws that regulate land use, the indices of human development and non-electrication and tools for dimensioning the systems for the given local demand, among others. All these interrelationships can be collected, quickly quantied and visualized spatially by the intrinsic management capacity of a GIS system. 1.3. GIS and renewable energies The use of GIS in renewable energy that began in the 1990s went through considerable progress and as a result various decision support tools were developed [2]. The GIS applications that were developed can be classied in three groups: GIS as a decision support tool for integration of renewable energies on a large scale and at a regional level, GIS for assessment of distributed energy generation and that connected to the electric network and GIS for decentralized production systems and autonomous production of electricity.

The GIS decision support tool for integration of renewable energies on a large scale and at a regional level (European Community) proposes to analyze: evaluation of renewable energy potential (solar, aeolic, biomass and minihydraulic), its participation in relation to primary regional energy and the potential reduction of CO2 emissions [3]; evaluation of economic and potential renewable energies to identify regions of the European Community where the renewable sources were competitive at a determined risk [4]; evaluation of renewable energy potential, calculation of the nal use in the region and according to the scenario the insertion of a given renewable energy, makes its dimensioning and evaluates the economic impacts [5]. The GIS for evaluation of distributed generation, connected to the electric network considers the following renewable energy sources: aeolic, biomass and solar. The majority of GIS applications for aeolic energy deal with the optimum localization of the aeolic plants, consider the potential of the resource, the infrastructure for access and transmission lines and environmental restrictions and land use [6e8], also Matthies [9] considers petroleum platforms, shipping routes and submarine lines for study of optimum localization of offshore aeolic farms. Marnay [10] developed a study of the use of photovoltaic solar energy installed on roofs of residences in the USA using GIS. The project included a municipality level resolution and considered the following variables: solar irradiation, average price of electricity and spatial distribution of the population. A peculiar characteristic of biomass utilization is the necessity of transport from the local of cutting to a central transformer which makes the geographic proximity of the offer a determining factor for the nal cost of the generated electric energy. Noon [11] developed a GIS for the Tennessee Valley, USA which considered the following variables: the characteristics of places of biomass offer, places of

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Fig. 6. GISA SOL general functionalities: Management at state (macro) and municipal (local) levels.

demand and transport costs, technical characteristics of the plants, forestry residues or cultivated forests, road networks and administrative limits. Voivontas [12] developed a work on the Island of Crete about the biomass potential for generation of electric energy. It deals with the combination of evaluation of the resources (theoretical and/or available), the transport cost, the identication of optimum locals for biomass cultivation and the denition of the size of the plant for determining its economic competitiveness in the presence of conventional sources. Similarly in Spain one was developed by IBERINCO [13]. SOLARGIS [14] is a GIS for rural electrication with renewable sources of energy. It is a paradigm of a GIS tool for this purpose as much for its completeness, relatively ample diffusion of its use as also for the periodic updating and improvements. The principal objectives of its development were: the demonstration of value of the GIS methodology for the development of the implantation of renewable sources for rural electrication, demonstration of its applicability in some target regions and proper construction of a GIS tool for analysis of the potential renewable sources. The SOLARGIS methodology intends to obtain the best option for rural electrication, in isolated localities using renewable systems or not, being individual user or users connected to a local mini-network. The isolated residence could be electried by PV systems, aeolic, gas generator, diesel group or interconnected to an electric minigrid. A mini-grid could be supplied by group diesel or hybrid aeolic-

diesel system. The high potential regions are determined through comparison of equivalent costs of electrication of the energy systems considered. For this calculation, with a resolution of 1 km2, the following information is used: habitation density, mean annual global irradiation on the collector plane, mean annual wind velocity and distance of residence to electric energy network. SOLARGIS was applied in Tunis (Tunisia), Kairouan (Tunsia), Marrocos, Sicilia (Italia), Andaluzia (Spain), Murcia (Spain), Crete (Greece), Island of Santiago (Cape Green), Par (Brazil) and Karnataka (India). NREL [15] is a GIS tool that is accessible via web that permits visualization of monthly mean solar irradiation with a spatial resolution of 40 km 40 km (low) and in high resolution 10 km 10 km for a collector plane facing the south, with the tilt in relation to the horizontal equal to latitude or the direct normal solar irradiation. In the same way it produces estimates of aeolic energy on an annual base, for low resolution (1/3 or 1/4 ) and high resolution cell size of 20e1000 m. Also the tool includes an estimation of the biomass potential derived from the different sources (agricultural and forestry residues, waste, among others). Renewable Energy Atlas of the West [16] is a GIS tool that is accessible via web which synthesizes the data and maps on renewable energies for eleven American states that are situated in the West of America: Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Washington and Wyoming. At a regional level (West American) the atlas shows, solar, aeolic,

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Fig. 7. Photovoltaic pumping systems installed in the states of Paraiba (a) and Pernambuco (c). (b), the water pumping systems with discharge rate higher than 6 m3/h installed in Paraiba and (d), the photovoltaic pumping systems in Pernambuco with manometric heights greater than 30 m.

biomass and geothermic resources, the present mix of electricity supply, the renewable energy systems installed and information on public policies for stimulating the use of renewable energies. Also the present capacity of transmission lines, an estimation of charge growth in the region, aspects of soil use and environmental impacts are presented. In other sections the Atlas makes an in detail account of this information at state level. PV-GIS [17] is a GIS application that is available in real time in web for calculating the photovoltaic solar energy potential in Europe. The user can navigate over solar irradiation maps and obtain the solar irradiance incident on a photovoltaic module positioned at different inclinations. A second application permits the obtention of the monthly mean daily prole for a given month and different positions and inclinations of the module. Finally a third application calculates the photovoltaic electric energy for a given conguration of PV systems that are localized in a given place. 2. Methodology for development of GISA SOL 1.0 The development of GISA SOL - Geographic Information System Applied to Solar Energy [18] methodology includes diverse stages that can be schematically seen in Fig. 4 where the uxogram of

development of the GIS planning module is shown. The great stages of development of the module for planning the inclusion of renewable energies can be seen from left to right and represent: - Collection of raw data on renewable energy resources, infrastructures, economic and social information, demographies, indices of non-electrication, aptitude for determined cultures, installed renewable energy systems, existing wells, among others; - Elaboration of a standardized geographic data bank, that is, referenced and uniform data; - Elaboration of data bank with dimensioning of PV energy systems and for pumping water; estimation of electricity generated by sugar cane bagasse; estimation of electricity generated by wind and climatic aptitude for biomass cultures; - Creation of a system that permits cross information according to rules dictated by geographics, techniques, social or administrative restrictions. The crossing is a geographic ltering that permits an answer to a given investigation of the user and - Finally the study of the best localities is done for inclusion of a determined renewable energy technology in accordance with some criteria pre-established by the user.

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Fig. 8. Batteries (a) and inverters (b) installed in Pernambuco. Additionally in yellow (a) PVX 12105 model batteries and (b) the Starpower model inverters.

The management module has the same structure as the planning module, however, it has different geographic data bases and results. The geographic data bank in this case contains detailed information on the PV systems installed by PRODEEM for phases I to V and emergent phase (pumping) whose elds are dened in the Technical Report on Revitalization of Energy Systems and Information on the Availability of Energy Sources. The results permit the identication of types of equipment, kinds of benets, installation phase, ill functioning (fault) and distance to the nearest maintenance center, among others. 3. General description of GISA SOL 1.0 The GIS prototype tool covers an area of 183,500 km2 and corresponds to the total area of three states, Alagoas, Pernambuco and Paraiba. In a second phase it will be extended to 1,561,178 km2 which corresponds to the total area of the Northeast region. The energy sources considered in this project were solar, aeolic and biomass. These renewable energy sources are abundant in the

region, adequate for the distributed generation and impact as much for the quality of life as well as for generation of income and jobs in the region, particularly in the case of castor bean plant with the inclusion of family agriculture in the production chain of biodiesel. The totality of the developed GIS tools previously described are focused on the planning of the insertion of renewable sources and does not deal with the management problems of a program for insertion of renewable energies on a wide spatial scale such as PRODEEM e The Energy Development Program for States and Municipalities. The GISA SOL (Geographic Information System Applied to Solar Energy) is a methodology based in GIS for management and planning of programs for insertion of renewable energy sources. 3.1. Principal menu The GISA SOL 1.0 (Geographic Information System Applied to Solar Energy) is made up of three principal blocks: management, planning, and updating of data bank, according to what can be seen

Fig. 9. Installation phase according to PRODEEM, in (a) the phase V in Paraiba and in (b) illumination in Pernambuco.

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Fig. 10. Photovoltaic systems installed in the municipality of Ibimirim in the state of Pernambuco (a) and in (b) models of PV modules that were used in the systems.

in Fig. 5. Management and planning occur at two levels: macrospatial (state) and local (municipal). The updating of data bank can be done by rectication, exclusion or inclusion of information to data banks that are associated to already installed energy systems.

3.2. Functionalities The use of a GIS tool requires the formulation of questions, whose answers are products of crossing one or more data banks and/or maps. The result is not normally completely conclusive (closed) and the product is a group of spatial information and/or reports that almost always still require the interpretation of who made the question. The GISA SOL 1.0 was constructed to give the user answers to questions, of general and simple character, that in the majority of times corresponds to one layer of information or complex questions whose answers are products of crossing of diverse layers of information. The answer to questions of simple general character are denominated default functionality and are

recorded as sub-menus in the menus of management and planning at macro-spatial and local level. The non default functionalities generated by complex questions by the users can be printed or recorded and can be transformed into default functionalities. Other default functionalities associated to the tasks of updating the data bank and dimensioning renewable energy systems are in the submenus of the updating and planning menu.

3.3. Management module The default functionalities of the GISA SOL 1.0, management module (PV management) are made up of three levels menus: a macro-spatial where the basic unit is the state, another local at municipal level and nally the possibility of updating of table data, according to what can be seen in Fig. 6, where are open. The macro-spatial management is constituted of 5 distinct blocks:

Fig. 11. Operational state of PV system components installed in Pernambuco (a) and in (b) the nearest maintenance centers.

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Fig. 12. Municipalities of Pernambuco that have income per capita less than US$100 (a) and (b) areas of exclusion dened as indigenous, ecological reserves and special areas of preservation.

- Installed photovoltaic systems and types of application; - Description of type, operational situation, fault and model of all the components of the installed photovoltaic systems; - Maintenance and training centers; - Phase of installation according to PRODEEM and - Infrastructure of transmission lines, roads and airports. Fig. 7 shows the photovoltaic pumping systems installed in the states of Paraiba (a) and Pernambuco (c). It also shows for each type of application the possibility of a more detailed ltering through a menu where the benets and some specic aspects can be chosen: in (b), for example, the water pumping systems with discharge rate higher than 6 m3/h installed in Paraiba and in (d), the photovoltaic pumping systems in Pernambuco with manometric heights greater than 30 m. Fig. 8 shows the batteries (a) and inverters (b) installed in Pernambuco. Additionally it shows the possibility of a more detailed ltering by a menu where a specic model can be chosen: in (a)

showPVX 12105 model batteries and in (b) the Starpower model inverters. Fig. 9 discriminates the photovoltaic systems installed in Alagoas and Pernambuco showing the installation phase according to PRODEEM, in (a) the phase V in Paraiba and in (b) illumination in Pernambuco.

3.4. Local management functionalities The local management is regarded in 4 distinct blocks: - Photovoltaic systems installed in the municipality; - Identication of a determined model and manufacturer for each component; - Identication of a determined model and manufacturer of photovoltaic modules;

Fig. 13. Subterranean wells cadastred by CPRM in the state of Pernambuco.

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Fig. 14. Aptitude of sugar cane culture in two distinct scenarios: dry and rainy period.

- Operational situation of all the components of the installed photovoltaic systems; - Identication of the nearest training and maintenance center. Fig. 10(a) shows the photovoltaic systems installed in the municipality of Ibimirim in the state of Pernambuco and in (b) which are the models of PV modules that were used in the systems. Fig. 11(a) shows the operational state of PV system components installed in Pernambuco and in (b) the nearest maintenance centers. 3.5. Planning module The planning process for the insertion of renewable energies in rural areas is normally a complex task because it demands an approach with multiple criteria: energy resources, socio-economic indicators, indices of non-electrication, among others. If we additionally consider the intention of stimulating regional development through the inclusion of energy systems for productive aims, we have to consider the aptitude of the soil for diverse cultures and the existence of hydric resources. The GISA SOL planning module was constructed considering these conditionals

and the possibility of analyzing the possible combinations of criteria dened by the user for localities for the implantation of new renewable energy systems. The GISA SOL functionalities for macro-spatial planning basically consist of the following blocks: HDI and index of non-electrication; Areas of exclusion; CPRM wells; Aptitude for sugar cane, quantity of produced cane and capacity of electric energy generation with sugar cane bagasse; Aptitude for castor bean plant, period of planting and biodiesel plants; Energetic forests; Wind direction and intensivity, promising area and capacity of electric generation by the wind; Monthly solar irradiation on the horizontal plane and solar irradiation on the collector plane in the month of minimum irradiation.

Fig. 12(a) shows the municipalities of Pernambuco that have income per capita less than US$100. The HDI sub-menu permits the

Fig. 15. Mean annual wind speed and prevailing direction of winds in two distinct scenarios dry and rainy period.

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Fig. 16. Solar irradiation on the horizontal plane for the months of minimum occurrence (July) and maximum (November) for the state of Pernambuco.

obtention of maps with other additional social indicators. The areas of exclusion are dened as indigenous, ecological reserves and special areas of preservation. They are considered areas of exclusion when one wants to localize conventional energy systems or large scale renewable energy systems. In the case of localization of small scale and distributed renewable systems, such areas must be considered as maximum priority. Fig. 12(b) shows these areas for Pernambuco. Fig. 13 shows all the subterranean wells cadastred by CPRM in the state of Pernambuco. A more detailed ltering through a menu permits the choice of some specic aspects as depth or nality. In yellow, for example, wells of depths greater than 30 m. Fig. 14 shows from left to right the aptitude of sugar cane culture in two distinct scenarios: dry and rainy period. Fig. 15 shows from left to right the mean annual wind speed and prevailing direction of winds in two distinct scenarios dry and rainy period. Finally, Fig. 16 shows solar irradiation on the horizontal plane for the months of minimum occurrence (July) and maximum (November) for the state of Pernambuco. 3.6. GISA SOL e calculus In the planning process for inclusion of renewable energy systems, after the denition coming from a multiple criteria approach (energy resources, socio-economic indicators, indices of non-electrication, among others) of the localities to be beneted, a dimensioning of the energy systems is necessary. The GISA SOL permits the realization of dimensioning or simplied calculus for the following systems: - Autonomous photovoltaic system [19]; - Photovoltaic system interconnected to the network; - Photovoltaic pumping system with given demand and depth of well [19]; - Photovoltaic pumping system with given capacity and depth of well; - Annual electric energy generated by sugar cane bagasse and - Annual electric energy generated by wind energy [20,21]. 4. Conclusions The most important aspects for management and planning of decentralized renewable energy systems were identied and

implemented in a Geographical Information System denominated GISA SOL 1.0 (Geographical Information System Applied to Solar Energy). The methodology developed in GISA SOL 1.0 permits planning of massive insertion of renewable energy systems and the management of renewable energy systems already implanted and distributed in large spatial areas. The planning module makes possible the identication of the most favorable localities for the installation of new energy systems, bearing in mind diverse criteria such as: solar resource, HDI, rural electrication index, income per capita, proximity to transmission line, existence of potable water, aptitude for diverse agricultural cultivation, wind resources and restriction of soil use. Apart from this, the module permits the carrying out of simplied dimensioning for photovoltaic and wind systems as well as calculating potential local electrical energy generated by biomass. The management module for renewable energy systems (PV systems management) makes possible the crossing of thematic maps such as: installed photovoltaic systems and types of application; operational situation, fault and model of all the components of the installed photovoltaic systems; maintenance and training centers; phase of installation according to PRODEEM and infrastructure of transmission lines, roads and airports. Finally, the totality of the developed GIS tools previously published are focused on the planning of the insertion of renewable sources and do not deal with the management problems of a program for insertion of renewable energies on a wide spatial scale, GISA SOL 1.0 consider both. Acknowledgements To the National Research Council (CNPQ), the So Francisco Hydroeletric Company (CHESF), and Brazilian Electric Centers S.A. (ELETROBRAS), CAPES-PROENGENHARIAS for the support in the solar energy researches, particularly are regarding the themes referring to measurements, evaluation and solar irradiation mapping. References
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