Renewable Distributed Generation and Its Stakeholders’ Engagement Contributing to Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation in Brazil Unisul—Universidade Do Sul de Santa Catarina, Brazil

Abstract

The Brazilian electricity grid will likely continue to depend on hydroelectricity in the medium term. However, mainly because of severe droughts in 2013 and 2014 (as a matter of fact, the droughts started in December, 2012, and are still worrying Brazilians in the first quarter of 2015), renewable and non-renewable alternative sources are expected to grow. Some of the factors expected to spur small-scale, distributed generation (DG) are costs and socio-environmental impacts of expanding the national grid, the country’s large, geographically diverse territory, and decreasing costs of renewable DG sources. Complementing the Brazilian electricity mix with renewable DG can contribute not only to climate change mitigation—by avoiding new GHG emissions—but also to climate change adaptation through economic and electric diversification. Indeed, economic diversification is one of the goals on the United Nations’ Framework Convention on Climate Change (see U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change). The authors noted in a previous article the lack of information in Brazil about photovoltaic energy and the role of the university promoting this concept (see Suni, Benevides, and Guerra). Now, they intend to demonstrate, besides DG’s benefits to climate change mitigation and adaptation, how stakeholders’ engagement in this field can improve the sustainability of DG and accelerate its adoption in the country.