Wind & Solar Track
18:45 - 20:15
Room: Douro IV + Douro VI
Submission 355
Distributed Green Hydrogen from Renewable Curtailment: A Techno-economic Study for Decarbonizing Heavy-Duty Road Freight in Southeast Brazil
65 GIW26-355
Presented by: Giovani Giulio Tristão Thibes Vieira
Victor Martins Menezes 1, Giovani Giulio Tristão Thibes Vieira 1, Mauricio B. C. Salles 1, Luca Bergamasco 2
1 Escola Politécnica (EP-USP), Power Systems Innovation Hub (RCGI-InnovaPower), University of São Paulo, Brazil
2 Department of Energy, Politecnico di Torino, Italy

Renewable curtailment for energetic reasons in Brazil increased from 4.4 TWh in 2024 to 20.2 TWh in 2025, while the national freight system remains dependent on diesel-fuelled road haulage. This work evaluates the contribution of mini distributed generation (mini-DG) to energetic curtailment and provides a techno-economic and geospatial assessment of a decentralized green hydrogen production and refuelling network for heavy-duty road transport in Southeast Brazil. Semi-hourly ONS curtailment data (2024–2025) were combined with the ANEEL mini-DG registry, PVGIS irradiance, EPE self-consumption factors and DNIT road and traffic data over a 1,850-hexagon grid. Curtailment was reallocated to mini-DG units according to their injected surplus and then distributed homogeneously across cells, after which PEM electrolyzers and hydrogen refuelling stations (HRS) were sized per cell under five operating strategies. Mini-DG could account for about 3% of national and up to 17% of Southeast/Midwest energetic curtailment. Curtailment-driven configurations yielded a levelized cost of hydrogen (LCOH) of 26.44–50.92 $/kg, dominated by low utilization rates (12–23%) and electrolyzer CAPEX, whereas a grid-extended full-load operation reached 10.57 $/kg at the cost of 29.7 TWh of additional demand. The resulting hydrogen could cover 39–56% of the reported internal Southeast freight distance and the full demand under extended operation, avoiding up to 6.82 MtCO2/year. Feasibility nonetheless remains conditional on complementary revenue, namely oxygen valorisation and the PHBC fiscal credit programme.