* Authors: Mateus Lourenço and Inacio Dantas *
Imagine a city with public lighting based on LED technology, solar power generators, underground cables in shopping centres which produce electricity, and the latest advances in technology. Then imagine the denizens of the city participating in such a changing world and getting to know the benefits that the application of these technologies and energy efficiency can provide them with. Well, Elektro is involved in such an initiative.
Elektro is developing a pilot project based on these concepts in São Luiz do Paraitinga in São Paulo state. The project is aiming to transform the locality into a smart city by investing it with advanced information and communications technologies that improve services, save electricity and reduce environmental impact.
The objective is to raise awareness among the city’s inhabitants of the cultural change necessary in the modern era. The initiative makes children the focus of knowledge so that it is they who disseminate the benefits of this project to others and their parents. To do this, schools are putting on educational activities tackling subjects ranging from electrical energy and how it is generated, transmitted and distributed, to how to fly kites safely in the vicinities of overhead lines. Other themes include participatory conferences, energy-themed workshops and inter-class competitions. Sustainability also benefits tourists, so the project will address themes as practised in their home countries and regions, too. Technological projects, meanwhile, will focus on smart measurement, automation of networks, distributed generation and electric vehicles, among other themes.
Elektro formed alliances in the project – carried out with funding from ANEEL, the Brazilian national electricity agency, with educational organisations such as the University of São Paulo, the engineering faculty at São Paulo State University, the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro and the Technological Innovation Foundation.
Elektro has taken many criteria on board when selecting the city for the pilot project. The main reasons it chose São Luiz do Paraitinga were its small size and the permission it received to conduct a detailed evaluation of the effects new technologies have on Elektro’s operations and electricity use by the community. São Luiz also has an extensive rural surroundings and an urban centre typical of most municipalities in the Company’s concession area. The project will last two years and is also being carried out with financing from the Research and Development Programme.
