A Proposal for Renewable Energy Viability and Environmental Conservation in the Caatinga: Challenges and Opportunities

Abstract

The need to preserve the Caatinga, characterized by a semiarid climate, high temperatures and low humidity with long periods of drought, while considering methods that could utilize these characteristics to minimize their adverse effects, poses a challenge. Despite this need, climate change has sparked significant global concern through the reduction of CO2 emissions. Given this scenario, clean energy generation presents an important alternative to overcome climate challenges. This study seeks to bridge these two needs by sharing resources from irrigation systems developed under the Integrated Development Region strategy. To this end, it seeks to integrate the use of renewable energy supported by a clustering model, grouping different municipalities to ensure the implementation of irrigation infrastructure with democratic participation. The research locus is the state of Ceará, the only state 100% located in this Caatinga region. The solar energy potential of the Northeast region represents a major economic investment in the short term, but with a reduction in the medium and long term. Furthermore, its technical feasibility requires local energy infrastructure and, from a socio-environmental perspective, can foster cooperative and associative work through the sharing economy due to the subdivision of solar panels. Based on this scenario, the results suggest that the use of optimal location points can contribute to the development of more resilient and sustainable energy solutions, benefiting both the environmental preservation of the Caatinga region and the generation of clean energy, the latter supported by the region's solar energy potential.