Heat causes demand for energy to reach the highest level in history in Brazil – 11/13/2023 – Market
The new heat wave that hits, especially the Southeast and Central-West regions, caused Brazil to reach a new national record for electricity on Monday afternoon (13).
According to the ONS (National Electric System Operator), a record was reached in the instantaneous load demand of the SIN (National Interconnected System), at 2:17 pm, when the level of 100,955 MW (megawatts) was reached.
It was the first time in the history of SIN that the load surpassed the 100,000 MW mark. The previous mark was 97,659 MW, measured on September 26 of this year.
When the level was recorded, the load was served by 61,649 MW of hydraulic generation (61.1%), 10,628 MW of thermal generation (10.5%), 9,284 MW of wind generation (9.2%), 8,505 MW of centralized solar generation (8.4%) and 10,898 MW of solar generation from micro and mini distributed generation – MMGD (10.8%).
This Monday, Inmet (National Institute of Meteorology) issued a new warning extending the red alert until Friday (17).
Temperatures must be at least 5ºC above average for a period longer than five days.
The city of São Paulo once again had the hottest day of the year. According to Inmet, 37.4°C was recorded at 3pm at the meteorological station at Mirante de Santana, in the north of the capital of São Paulo.
According to a report from Sheet showed, the heat waves that have been most frequently recorded in the country do not just cause discomfort for people.
They have impacts on various activities in the economy, which begin to put into practice existing contingency measures and plan new adaptations for a scenario of prolonged warming.
Among the main impacts, experts highlight the increase in energy costs, due to the greater use of air conditioning, and a loss of efficiency in the agricultural and aviation sectors.
On Friday (10), the ONS raised its November projection to a growth of 11.0% compared to the same month in 2022, to 79,780 average megawatts (MWm), against 10.6% estimated in the previous week.
He also revised upwards his estimate for the rains expected to reach hydroelectric plants in the South in November, at the same time as he reduced the forecast for inflows in the North.
According to the bulletin, the rain expected to reach the reservoirs of plants in the South was estimated at 437% of the historical average in October, compared to 384% predicted in the previous week.
For the other regions, the forecast is for inflows below the historical average, with 52% in the North (compared to 68%), 43% in the Northeast (compared to 32%) and 88% in the Southeast/Central-West (compared to 113% previously) .
The level of reservoirs in the Southeast/Central-West, the main reservoir for hydroelectric power plants, should reach 66.3% at the end of November, slightly below the 69.9% predicted in the previous week.
With Reuters
