With the theme “Integration Dialogues”, the São Paulo Center for Energy Transition Studies (CPTEn) held its first seminar on Tuesday (9), in the Congregation room of the Faculty of Electrical and Computer Engineering (FEEC). Luiz Carlos Pereira da Silva, director of CPTEn, Antonio José de Almeida Meirelles, rector of Unicamp, Luiz Eugênio Mello, scientific director of the São Paulo State Research Support Foundation (Fapesp), and Fernando Chucre, Secretary of State for Infrastructure and Environment (Sima-SP), were some of the representatives who were at the opening ceremony.
The event marks the beginning of activities at Unicamp's new research center and its program was open to general participation during the morning. In the afternoon, there was a workshop aimed at researchers, teachers and students from the eight thematic axes that, aligned with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), propose the energy transition for the State of São Paulo.
For the director of CPTEn, as science becomes part of public administration processes, the greater the likelihood of better decisions being made for citizens. “CPTEn is an extension of what we have been doing at Unicamp over the last five years. We did a lot of research and there are many projects at Unicamp to support energy management and efficiency, renewable energy and electric mobility. The idea, now, is to extend this to the State of São Paulo”, said Silva, referring to the public use of energy in more than 30 thousand consumer units linked to the State.
Meirelles considers that these new activities need to be aimed at formulating public policies. “We have a very close presence with the Council of the Metropolitan Region of Campinas, involving 20 cities, and this could be one of the main projects for us to discuss with their mayors,” he stated. The rector emphasized the presence of actors from different areas at CPTEn, such as Law and Education researchers, highlighting the quality and potential impact of the work that will be developed.
It was during this interaction that PUC-SP professors Ivani Fazenda and Danúsia Arantes, researchers at Unicamp, both members of CPTEn, exposed the challenge of articulating dialogue integrating different types of knowledge in CPTEn and highlighted the need to solve complex problems. “Acting professionally, in an interdisciplinary way, is having the humility to understand that, despite everything we study in this life, this knowledge is still small compared to the grandeur that the world offers us”, said Fazenda.
Data from Sima-SP demonstrate that, in 2021, 62% of São Paulo's energy matrix was renewable, a higher percentage than the national figure, which, in the same period, reached around 45%. This information was presented by Ricardo Cantarani, deputy director of CPTEn and coordinator of Oil, Gas and Biofuels at Sima-SP, during the presentation of the scenarios for the energy transition. Regardless of category, sugar cane and its derivatives are the most used inputs in São Paulo's energy matrix. Hydraulic, solar and wind energy generation accounts for 21% of the renewable matrix and represents the second most significant source in this regard.
The exhibition also featured the collaboration of Alfonso Blanco Bonilla, executive secretary of Latin American Energy Organization (Olade), who exposed the Latin American situation in terms of energy transition, and Gilberto Jannuzzi, professor at the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering (FEM) at Unicamp and researcher at the Interdisciplinary Center for Energy Planning (Nipe), which drew attention to the processes and main results of the Brazil Energy Program (BEP).
In addition to Unicamp itself, Fapesp and Sima-SP, CPTEn has a partnership with Companhia Paulista de Força e Luz (CPFL), the National Electric Energy Conservation Program (Procel/Eletrobras) and the company Radaz. The group also includes the São Paulo State University (Unesp), the Pontifical Catholic University of Minas Gerais (PUC-Minas), the Renato Archer Information Technology Center (CTI), the Federal Institute of Education, Science and Technology of São Paulo (IFSP), the Federal Technological University of Paraná (UTFPR), the University of São Paulo (USP), the Federal University of Goiás (UFG), the Nove de Julho University (Uninove), the Mackenzie Presbyterian University (UPM), the Delft University of Technology (TU Delft) and the Lappeenranta-Lahti University of Technology (LUT).
