A Contribution to the Study of the Estimate Hydroelectric Potential for Small Hydropower Plant

The aim of this work is to study and develop a methodology for the first stage of deployment of a Small Hydropower Plant (SHP), the Estimate Hydroelectric Potential, stage in which is studied the favorable and unfavorable situations to the deployment of small plants. Basing on environmental and technical criteria of a watershed, according secondary data provided by agencies and institutions responsible for each criterion. Data collections for the study observe the geological and geotechnical, environmental, infrastructure and logistics, water availability and topography aspects. Moreover, it presents the use of GIS (Geographic Information Systems) and it uses the Hydrology Statistics for the hydrological study, to verify the flow of a river or precipitation at a local or region. At the end, it presents the estimate average energy generated, or average power, basing first on the variation of flow over an average year, and constant height. It was applied a study case of the methodology in the watershed of the Tijuco river, limited to the city of Ituiutaba ‑ MG. It was found that the adopted tool is easy to use, reliable and could be adopted for the studies and the calculation of the estimated average energy generated from the statistical analysis of the flow rate for the Tijuco River provided an attractive potential hydroelectric.