EDP, an electrical energy distributor based in the Vale do Paraiba, Alto Tietê and North Coast regions, opened its Energy Efficiency Laboratory today (21) at its head office in Mogi das Cruzes. It has also announced the winners of its “Xô Desperdício” (Stop Waste) cultural competition, with 10 schools in the company's concession area winning full solar energy generating kits to help then save electricity.

The event was attended by students and educators from the winning schools and officials from the cities of Potim, Guaratinguetá, Cruzeiro, Guararema, Salesópolis, Itaquaquecetuba and Mogi das Cruzes, where the schools are based. Over 74 thousand students from 72 municipal schools took part in the competition, which was organized to encourage state school students to save natural resources and use electricity safely and efficiently.

Luciano Cavalcante, executive manager at EDP, noted that “EDP is constantly engaged with a growing number of people to increase energy awareness and it is a great source of pride to unveil our Energy Efficiency Laboratory at the same time we are announcing the winners of the state schools that have adopted best energy usage practices”.

Energy Efficiency Laboratory

The Laboratory was developed as an educational venue, offering information on various aspects of energy efficiency and encouraging people to use electricity safely and efficiently. The venue will be open to the general public, but visits must be scheduled in advance. Some of the Laboratory’s main attractions are:

Bulb Carpet: Around 3,300 incandescent light bulbs have been installed in an under floor compartment, all of them taken from homes where light bulbs have been replaced as part of efficiency projects in concession area cities. If the bulbs were lit, they would use more power than the whole of EDP’s building in Mogi das Cruzes, where over 400 people work.

Virtual Reality: “Players” enter a cube located in the center of a room where they interact using virtual reality to discover where electricity comes from, including the generation, transmission and distribution phases. Visitors are also given tips on how to use electricity safely and efficiently.

Talking shower: This is a shower equipped with a sensor-activated radio that alerts visitors about what showers represent as a proportion of a household’s electricity usage.

Photovoltaic System: This is a solar panel structure containing 10 265Wp modules, creating a 2.65kWp power plant. The system will provide all the power the Laboratory needs to be self-sufficient.

A panel located inside the solar panel room shows the power being generated.

Stop Waste Competition

The Competition, part of the Good Energy in Schools projects, was held between September and November 2018. 74 thousand students from 21 cities in the EDP SP concession area took part. Participating schools were invited to perform a number of tasks that were transformed into YouTube videos that told the competition's story.

The 10 competition winners were selected based on the number of likes given to each video, weighted according to the size of the city’s population based on the IBGE’s 2010 Census. As a result, the participating schools were split into three groups to ensure each city was able to compete on an equal footing. In addition to the tasks the schools were given, the ranking also took into account the number of people who voluntarily agreed to put their energy bills on direct debit and the number of people who registered to receive their bills by email. The organizers also checked to see how much each school had actually managed to reduce its power consumption (comparing their November 2018 bills with their bills from the year before).

The 10 winning schools will receive a photovoltaic generating kit capable of generating 2.5 kWp, which represents approximately 300 KWh/month. Four schools from Potim, Guaratinguetá and Cruzeiro, in the Vale do Paraíba region, will receive the prize. Guararema and Salesópolis, Itaquaquecetuba and Mogi das Cruzes, all in the Alto Tietê region, had one school each that also won kits.

The Stop Waste competition by the numbers:

• 74 thousand students involved
• 21 cities took part
• 72 state schools
• 360 participating teachers
• 72 videos published
• More than 100 thousand views
• 26 thousand likes
• 3.6 thousand shares

Competition winners

"Boa Energia nas Escolas" Project

The competition is part of the Good Energy in Schools project, itself part of EDP São Paulo’s Energy Efficiency Program which uses the PROCEL Education methodology and is supported by ANEEL (the National Electrical Energy Agency). The goal is to train educators, raise awareness about energy safety and efficiency among children and adolescents and multiply the lessons learned outside the classroom.