This week, we had a meeting with Milton Flávio Marques Lautenschlager, who is the Sub-secretary of Renewable Energy for the State of Sao Paulo. We went to the Secretary of Energy offices where he gave us a presentation about all the renewable energy-related projects regarding the State of Sao Paulo. In terms of renewable technologies, the state of Sao Paulo is the most advanced and the one that produces the most in all Brazil.
I must say it was impressive to meet someone with such a long carrer as Dr. Milton Flávio Marques Lautenschlager, who is a Professor at the Medical School of UNESP, a doctor in experimental surgery, a former state representative at the senate, among others. If you like to find out more about who he is, check out this website:
According to him, the potential for hydroelectricity power is tapped out in this state, which is why they've had to put more effort in developing other renewable technologies considering that that the State of Sao Paulo is going to keep growing rapidly, and there won't be enough renewable energy supply for its inhabitants. One of this technologies is biomass obtained from bagasse. He said that 66% of this is exported to other states in Brazil. Moreover, he talked about what products companies, such as Petrobras, use to produce ethanol. For instance, he said that 13 and a half liters of vinasse, a sugar byproduct, are used to produce 1 liter of ethanol. On the other hand, he said that there are other alternatives to ethanol such as biodiesel, whose production can be increased greatly considering that it's infrastructure is being sub-used.
In terms of wind power, the State of Sao Paulo has currently no power generation for this type of technology. Though, Dr. Marques Lautenschlager pointed out that this could be a good solution for power generation in rural areas in Brazil such as Campinas. Furthermore, we explained us all about the potential for solar power this state has, which if taken advantage from, could represent a solid power source for this state.
After his presentation, we were allowed to ask him some questions. Naturally, we were particularly interested in asking about the Paulista Energy Plan, which a project for the State of Sao Paulo that intends to increase their energy supply from renewable sources from 55% to 69% by 2020. He said that in fact this is possible and he restated all the potential there is for solar, wind and biomass produced energy that can hel the state achieve that goal. Also, although the hydroelectric potential is tapped out, there is some potential is the PCHs, which are small hydroelectric centrals, which don't account for the big hydropower plants. In terms of expanding solar power, he said that the state is already developing project with supermarkets, stores and schools to install solar panels on the roof of this establishments.
More than 90% of the vehicles in Brazil have flex engines, which make them suitable to use ethanol as fuel. However, this made us wonder if there's any other alternative to renewable fueled cars in Brazil such as electrical cars. The answer is no. He simply stated that they don't have the infrastructure to do so because this technology is still too expensive.
At the beginning of the presentation, he had stated that they were planning to have tax incentives to promote the expansion of the renewable industry, but he never specified what those were. Also, I had read in an article that he was planning to reduce the ICMS (Tax on circulation of goods and services for interstate transportation, and intercity communication) for ethanol. Therefore, I asked him how his office was planning to do so, and he told me that in fact they had already done so. The ICMS for ethanol all around Brazil is 25%, while in the State of Sao Paulo 12%, which explains why this state has the largest ethanol production countrywide.
Someone asked a really interesting question regarding social differences and renewable technologies in Sao Paulo. Since renewable technologies are expensive, poor people can't afford them. Therefore, because of these technologies, the gap between the rich and the poor is unfortunately going to continue growing. In addition, the government doesn't even want to implement these technologies in the lowest-income neighborhoods because they are scared that the equipment, such as solar panels, might get stolen.
There is an article about our meeting with the sub-secretary. Here's the link to it:
http://www.energia.sp.gov.br/lenoticia.php?id=530
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