A solar power plant built on top of the Caximba landfill, which was decommissioned in 2010, is the new symbol of Curitiba. Nicknamed the “solar pyramid” due to its shape, the plant has an installed capacity of 4.55 megawatts (MW) and was inaugurated last Wednesday (29) during the city's 330th anniversary celebrations.
The project is part of “Curitiba Mais Energia,” one of the city's initiatives to combat and mitigate climate change by producing renewable energy. The municipality will reduce the emission of 2,000 tons of CO2 into the atmosphere, helping meet the city's greenhouse gas reduction targets.
The project also generates savings for the public administration. The energy produced by the solar plant's photovoltaic modules is fed into the grid of Copel (Companhia Paranaense de Energia Elétrica), with the value credited against the municipality's electricity bills.
Estimated monthly savings are 30% on the electricity bills of municipal public buildings. This could translate to R$ 2.65 million annually, which can be reinvested to benefit the population.
Innovation
With nearly 8,600 panels, the Caximba Solar Pyramid is the first solar plant built on a landfill in Latin America.
“This is a highly complex project that required extensive technical studies by the engineering team, particularly to overcome soil and terrain challenges for a photovoltaic system of a kind never built before in the country. It took about two years of development and analysis to arrive at a safe and efficient design,” says Marcelo Abuhamad, commercial director of Grupo Bonö Energia, the solar energy engineering and project development firm.
According to Abuhamad, the plant will serve as a “benchmark for sustainable design and environmental construction on landfills for other municipalities and private waste treatment and disposal companies in Brazil.”
International Support
To become a reality, the project received an investment of R$ 28 million through various partnerships. The return on investment is estimated at approximately five years. Selected by the C40 Cities network and funded by the C40 Cities Finance Facility (CFF) for its development, the project complies with the Distributed Generation regulations of Aneel (National Electric Energy Agency).
The project is also a collaboration with the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group and Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH, which supports cities in developing initiatives to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and curb global warming.
The program is funded by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), the UK Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (BEIS), and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).
The solar pyramid project was presented at the opening of Smart City Expo Curitiba 2023, the country's largest smart city event, which took place in March in the capital of Paraná.
Via CicloVivo.
This article was written by CicloVivo. The translation is powered by AI.
