Economic viability of alternative sources of energy for a typical community of the Region North and Northeast of Brazil

The objective of this work is to perform a study of viability of alternative energy sources for typical communities of the North or Northeast of Brazil, which do not have access to the electric energy. Brazil presents a great economic and social disparity among its several regions. There are several poor communities, mainly in regions far from big cities, without electrical energy. The Brazilian government has a program known as 'Luz para Todos' (Light for All). The big challenge for this program is to bring electrical energy for everyone using new alternatives energy sources. In this work initially a literature review was made concerning the following alternative energy sources: wind, solar and biomass. These energy sources can be used to supply the demand to bring electrical energy for poor communities. For this work it is intended to choose a community that has population between 1,000 the 10,000 and does not have access to electrical energy. For this community an economic viability study will be made to evaluate alternative energy sources. The best energy source resulted from the point of view of the economic viability study will be implemented in that community. A new study will be performed to evaluate cost and environmental impact. In this new study the future social development of the community caused by the installation of electrical energy will be considered. Also, this best energy source will be compared with the new generation of nuclear reactors, for instance, the IRIS reactor. (author)