Contribuições de empreendimentos eólicos para a sustentabilidade energética: um estudo exploratório no setor de geração de energia eólica no Rio Grande do Norte.

Abstract

The fossil fuel civilization, begun in the nineteenth century, had its apogee at the end of the twentieth century, but the pressures due to the impacts generated by the generation of conventional energy, led to the emergence of new public policies for the energy sector. Currently the main public policy of the energy sector is the development of renewable energy, which has been an important factor for the development of energy sustainability, in Brazil the wind source has had enormous growth since 2009, being a source that has been used for Development and improvement of energy sustainability. However, there is a need for the application of energy sustainability indicators, to assess the impact that wind farm facilities bring to municipalities that have this energy source installed. Therefore, the objective of the research is to analyze the contributions of wind farms installed in municipalities of the north coast of Rio Grande do Norte in the perspective of the energy sustainability of the economic activity and the region. For the application of sustainability indicators, municipalities in the state of Rio Grande do Norte were chosen because this is the largest wind generator in Brazil. While for the accomplishment of the research, we selected the energy sustainability indicators most compatible with the context of research and type of renewable energy surveyed, respectively, the five municipalities of Potiguar and the process of installation and operation of wind power plants in these municipalities. In this sense, a set of 14 indicators divided into five dimensions were used: Social, Economic, Environmental, Technological and Territorial. From the results obtained through the indices of energy sustainability, it was possible to analyze the contribution of wind power plants to energy sustainability in the cities surveyed, where the introduction of wind energy has modified these municipalities in relation to jobs, And improved access to energy. However, these improvements fall short of expectations. This is due to the presence of bottlenecks that need attention, such as the seasonality of jobs, the possible fall of taxes in the future, as well as the protection of coastal zones with dune ecosystems that Are extremely vulnerable to deforestation occurring in the implementation of wind farms. However, in general, wind energy has helped in the development of localities, even though these indices are still in a state of alert, there is a prospect that soon this situation becomes acceptable about energy sustainability, however the bottlenecks cited Previously need to take care of public managers so that these rates really shift to an acceptable state of energy sustainability.