By: Ben Rowland, Induron T&D Sales
In October of 2023, I returned to Brazil to see how Induron could help some of the largest power utilities in not only Brazil, but all of South America. With some added stateside support from a former Induron employee, Dick Belliveau, we traveled throughout Brazil to see job sites, meet with engineers and give presentations.
When we arrived in Rio De Janeiro, we were greeted by our partners in Brazil, Pensacola Services. With their help, we’ve been able to gain quite an audience within the Brazilian power industry.
We began our work trip by attending and presenting at the 2023 Corrosion Conference held by CEPEL, an electrical energy research institution located in Rio. The conference was held at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro over the course of 3 full days. There were a variety of topics presented from suppliers, power transmission engineers and utility executives, all geared toward mitigating the effects of corrosion on the electrical transmission grid. I had the opportunity to present on the solutions that Induron offers and some of the realities of the corrosion that never sleeps. My counterpart from Pensacola Services, Natanael Moreira, presented to the group on recent regulatory changes in the U.S. regarding the capitalization of these solutions.
From Rio, we traveled to northern Brazil to the town of Paulino Neves. There is a very large electric power generation wind farm located on the Atlantic coast. We consulted with the utility operating the facility about some of the corrosion issues they’ve been fighting. It’s a beautiful area, full of all sorts of eco-tourism, but also some of the worst corrosion and erosion rates that I’ve ever personally seen due to the high levels of salts and the eroding effect of wind driven sand. We were able to come up with some ideas that we’re confident will help fight the corrosion they’re facing.
We continued back south to São Paulo where we would meet back up with some of our peers from the conference in Rio the previous week. This time around we would have the opportunity to conduct some field demonstrations of our products and solutions we had just presented on.
We went to two different sites located in São Bernardo do Campo. While one of the sites was relatively accessible, the other was literally in the middle of a jungle. Both towers were in an existing condition that would allow for a single coat application of Induraguard 9200, but the less accessible tower allowed Induraguard 9200 to show its overall value as a solution, beyond just the material itself. This, like many other tower sites, is not in the most forgiving areas.
Efficiency is key when trying to revitalize and extend the life of the immense existing transmission grid. By having a product that is surface tolerant (minimal surface preparation with no need for heavy equipment), can build the required film thickness in a single coat (ease of application and compliance with the specification) and can provide proven protection (1,000’s of towers protected over decades), it makes the choice pretty easy.
All in all, the trip to Brazil was another successful one in Induron’s effort to promote life extension of the world’s electrical transmission infrastructure, both domestically and abroad.