Day 2: August 12, 2014

Today, August 12, we visited the Tractebel Energia geothermal facility in Capivari de Baixo, a coal fire energy plant.  They are the top private energy producer in Brazil and owned by GDF Suez.  Tractebel has a variety of plants ranging from hydroelectric to biomass to geothermal.  Tractebel as a whole accounts for 7% of the energy produced in Brazil. In visiting their facility we had the opportunity to see their main control room, where it was very interesting to see much of their controls were analog as opposed to the expected digital.  From the screens in their control room we were able to observe the crucial elements of the coal fire burning process.  We also had the opportunity to look inside an open steam turbine currently under maintenance.  At the time they only had 6 of their 7 coal fire burners operating.  They are the process of constructing an 8^th unit.   Tractebel as a whole was a very interesting company and it will be very interesting watch it grow and increase its role in energy generation in Brazil.

Tractebel Energia Brochure

Scale model of Tractebel facility

Actual facility from the outside