The Effluent Program manages and continuously monitors the sanitary and industrial effluents produced at Copel’s facilities, thereby ensuring that facilities related to this environmental aspect comply with regulations, with a view to meeting legal requirements and the conditions of the projects’ environmental permits, with the following objectives:
- Monitor the parameters established for the compliance of the discharge of sanitary and industrial effluents; and
- To prevent environmental impacts on the hydric environments associated to the undertakings.
The main benefits of the Effluent Program refer to the preservation of the collective health and well-being through the ecological balance of the aquatic environment and water quality.
The monitoring consists in periodic collections from the effluent treatment systems in order to guarantee their efficiency and operationality. The collections are planned taking into consideration the legally established frequency and the specific requirements of the conditioning factors of the operation licenses of each enterprise.
The physical-chemical and microbiological analyses are carried out by a certified laboratory, which issues laboratory analysis reports and annual reports for a monitoring cycle. The technical management team evaluates and controls the results of the campaigns and, when disagreements or non-conformities with the legislation are verified, it informs the responsible operational area in order to take corrective action in the treatment system, when necessary.
Effluents at Copel
- Sanitary – similar to domestic effluents, of exclusively administrative origin, generated at all facilities; Sanitary effluents from administrative units are discharged into the public sewer system whenever available. In locations where there is no public sewer system, treatment is carried out using septic tanks, soakaways, and infiltration ditches, constructed in accordance with the relevant technical standards. Therefore, the monitoring described above does not apply to these systems. Specifically, at large hydroelectric power plants (HEPs) and small hydroelectric power plants (SHPs) where it is not feasible to install soakaways and/or infiltration ditches, sanitary effluents are discharged into the water body after treatment. It should be noted that these discharge volumes are very low compared to the river’s flow (taking into account both turbined and spillway flows); therefore, the polluting potential of these discharges is practically zero. Regardless of the irrelevance of this discharge, qualitative monitoring is conducted at the treatment facilities.
- Industrial – generated during the operational processes of power generation and transmission facilities; the volume depends on the type of facility, noting that wind farms do not generate this type of effluent. The generation of effluents during Copel GeT’s operational production process is not considered significant in terms of potential impacts on ecosystems, water resources, and society, and therefore does not pose risks to the company’s business.
| Installation Type | Origin of the Effluent | Possible Pollutants | Treatment/Destination |
| UHEs and PCHs | Effluents from maintenance, washing parts and floors in maintenance workshops; | Oils and Greases, settleable and suspended solids | SAO followed by Infiltration/Collection network/Water body |
| Effluents from the turbine cooling system; | Thermal Effluent (Heat) | Leakage Channel / Water Body | |
| Effluents from Water-Oil Separator (SAO) systems | Oils and Greases, settleable and suspended solids | Water Body | |
| Subestações | Effluents from Water-Oil Separator (SAO) systems | Oils and Greases | SAO / Soil infiltration / sewage collection network |
