For Flávio Gomide, Business Unit Manager at Omexom Brazil, an engineering role at VINCI Energies offers a double opportunity: to actively contribute to energy transition and to develop his entrepreneurial skills for projects that improve people’s lives.
In 2022, almost 3,000 families in the Pantanal, an isolated region of Brazil the size of Portugal, located close to the borders with Bolivia and Paraguay, were equipped with photovoltaic solar electricity generation systems. Omexom’s Business Unit Manager Flávio Gomide was involved in this project, which began in 2020 and of which he is “extremely proud”.
“Not only did we have to take on a technical challenge – implementing a large-scale solution based on lithium batteries for the first time in Brazil – but this initiative for our customer Energisa also enabled these isolated communities to gain autonomy by replacing their fuel oil generators with a renewable, non-polluting energy source.”
Flávio Gomide is passionate about the environmental impact of his work. “It’s very important to me that our projects make a tangible contribution to energy transition,” he says. In Brazil, with the hydroelectric power plants that generate close to two-thirds of the country’s electricity now over 30 years old on average, the needs are immense.
“I’m really like a general manager, managing operations and customer relations at the same time”
“We are actively contributing to the modernisation of these production facilities, including by digitalising them. The 14 sites operated in Brazil by the Italian group Enel, for example, that we finished automating in late 2021. Thanks to the automation and digitization of the 14 sites by Omexom, our client is now able to operate remotely and optimise the maintenance of the sites in across the region and located at considerable distances from one another.”
In his father’s footsteps
Flávio Gomide is glad he followed his father’s advice when, as a young student, he was unsure of which strand to pursue in his engineering studies. “He was himself an engineer in the water treatment sector, and had witnessed the evolution of electrical equipment and its automation. Because of this, he advised me to study electrical engineering. I did just that and have no regrets!”
The young engineer learned his trade with Orteng, a Brazilian group specialising in electrical equipment and automation, mostly on projects related to hydroelectric energy. Shortly after the acquisition of Orteng by VINCI Energies in 2015, Flávio Gomide completed his university education with a course devoted to renewable energies. “Solar and wind were just beginning to take off in Brazil, and I wanted to jump on the bandwagon!” Now 43, Flávio Gomide heads a team of 40 specialists in hydroelectric and solar energy.
“What I really appreciate at VINCI Energies is the autonomy,” he says. “I’m really like a general manager, managing operations and customer relations at the same time. Every year, in September, like the other business unit managers, I present my three-year business strategy, an action plan co-designed with my team rather than imposed from on high. This way of working, specific to VINCI Energies, is highly gratifying and motivating.”
Flávio Gomide makes it a point of honour to offer this same autonomy to the young talent in his team: “You have to be available to support them but also be able to give them responsibilities, as that’s the only way for them to grow.”
The best of both worlds
From apprentices to old hands, the members of his team are not short of work, particularly with three large-scale projects in progress. In May 2022, the Engie group assigned them the modernisation of the hydroelectric plant at the Jaguara Dam in southeastern Brazil, including the implementation of a digital monitoring and control system for auxiliary site services.
In April 2023, they secured a similar contract with Cemig Geração e Transmissão for the Nova Ponte power plant, with the aim of improving the site’s operational efficiency, reducing maintenance costs and prolonging the installation’s operational life. And another huge project involves the modernisation of Enel’s Horizonte solar power plant to increase its production capacity.
With these steps, Flávio Gomide reinforces his belief that there is a path in the Brazilian market, to create and lead not one but two entities, dedicated to the solar and hydroelectric markets respectively. These new responsibilities would make his practice of mountain biking more essential than ever – a passion that he sees as “genuinely therapeutic”.
17/07/2023
