Método de avaliação do nível de sustentabilidade de programas de eletrificação rural com sistemas fotovoltaicos individuais

Abstract

Photovoltaic systems have been characterized as a major source of power generation in remote areas. In this context, the use of this energy source, whose main aim is to provide electricity to small properties, that often are far from large centers of consumption has significantly increased in rural areas. Most of the rural electrification programs implemented in the world have not achieved adequate levels of sustainability mainly because they considered only technical aspects and focused less on socioeconomic factors that also affect the level of sustainability. In this context, this paper proposes to develop a method to assess the level of sustainability of rural electrification programs with a single photovoltaic system, considering qualitative factors. The indicators of assessment that contributed to the rural electrification program were realized by means of the fuzzy TOPSIS analysis tool. The methodology consists of identifying the aspects that contribute to the sustainability of the program, the best practices, and opportunities of improvement of the program to be implemented worldwide. From this, three dimensions identified, Dimension 1 - Policy, Budget and origin of feature, 2 - Characteristics of PV systems and 3 - Program Management, which together result in 33 questions of a sustainable program. The mathematical model has been used to assess the sustainability of a rural electrification program based on expert judgment on 33 questions developed through the use of fuzzy logic (linguistics variable), with the adaptation of fuzzy TOPSIS method for processing information data. The results of the analysis of the questions related to Dimension 1 reveals that the criteria established by each expert showed no significant change. For the second dimension, a greater disparity in opinions can be seen. Finally, for the third dimension, both experts had similar opinions, with level of significance ranging. The mathematical method was employed to determine the distance between the responses evaluated as the most appropriate by experts (ideal solution) and the answers provided by users of the proposed method. The result of the analysis indicated the maximum 6,635 and minimum 2,874 distances of the alternatives to dimension 1. For the second dimension, the maximum value was 4,367 and the minimum was 1,722, and for the third dimension, the maximum was 7,646 and minimum 1,965. The method proposed in this paper was applied to the existing rural electrification program in Timor-Leste, and show the sustainability index obtaining for each dimension: 45,73 for dimension 1, 33,19 for dimension 2,39,50 for dimension 3 and 39,14 for global index of sustainability.