L.T. van Halderen
Research project for the Brazilian electricity market.
Internship,
Report 2001.LT.5563, Transport Technology, Logistic Engineering.
Brazil's electricity market faces some large challenges. It's first
challenge is, that as a result of under-investment in the electricity
sector and insufficient rainfall in a country which relies for 90% on
hydropower, Brazil is troubled by large electricity shortages. A solution
for these shortages, could be the installation of so-called cogeneration
projects within large companies. The second challenge is that the
Brazilian electricity market will be deregulated in the next five years. A
result of this deregulation process is that Brazilian electricity
consumers will be free to choose their suppliers themselves.
Gerasul is Brazil's largest private electricity producer. It is a subsidiary
of Tractebel, a Belgium company that on its turn is a subsidiary of SUEZ.
SUEZ offers business solutions in water, power and waste management.
Within Gerasul, the two challenges in the electricity market lead to two
different opportunities: companies to set up cogeneration projects with
have to be found and a marketing strategy has to be developed to make sure
that Gerasul is ready for the deregulation process. Research was performed
for both opportunities.
To be able to select possible cogeneration clients, selection criteria were
developed. A total of 17 companies could be selected while using these
criteria and exploring the internet. The companies are presented in this report.
Some marketing guidelines already exist within Tractebel which are called
TIS, Tractebel Industrial Solutions. These guidelines are used in the
development of the marketing strategy. A project was started in order to
develop the marketing strategy. The process to be followed was defined. Part of
this process was the construction of a geographical database. The construction
of this database would be part of the internship. The database provides general,
financial and electrical information about Brazil's states. The database was
constructed using computer program Excel and is presented in this report.
During the development of the database, not every manager spent as much
time on the project as was desired by Tractebel. Therefore it seemed that
not every manager gave the project the same priority as the Board of
Directors. This could lead to a delay in the development of the marketing
strategy.
Two conclusions can be drawn resulting from the research described above.
Firstly, using internet is not the best way to select new clients for
cogeneration projects, since it is extremely time consuming. Secondly, the TIS
project is not handled with the priority it deserves. Gerasul's Board of
Directors names the TIS-project as one of its mission statements, but the
project doesn't appear to have the same priority for the people working on it.
The conclusions lead to several recommendations: for the cogeneration project,
information has to be obtained in a different way. This can be done by
contacting an organization called TCAPP or buying information. For the marketing
strategy project it is recommended to restructure the marketing department
to make sure marketing gets the priority it deserves. Joining this
restructure, Gerasul could make the importance of marketing clear to its
employees by organizing marketing-related activities.
Reports on Logistic Engineering (in Dutch)
Modified: 2002.02.13;
logistics@3mE.tudelft.nl
, TU Delft
/ 3mE
/ TT
/ LT.