Aneel allows 246 renewable energy plants to terminate contracts without paying fines

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This measure opened space for other projects to channel energy into the transmission system, which has limited capacity. The National Electric Energy Agency (Aneel) allowed 246 renewable energy plants to terminate their contracts for using the system without being fined. The information comes from the agency’s general director, Sandoval Feitosa, in an interview with g1. Result of the “forgiveness day”, approved by Aneel in July, the measure aims to open space for other projects to flow energy into the transmission system, which has limited capacity. Due to the deadline until March 2022 to present projects and maintain subsidies, several companies made requests to build plants with Aneel. However, many of them were not viable, were late or had not even started construction (see below). “Aneel made an exceptional rule to allow those who did not have a firm commitment to delivering the projects to give up, in order to free up margin for those who certainly want to carry out the projects”, declared Feitosa. Most of these plants are wind and solar energy and were designed to provide energy on the free market – a form of commercialization in which consumers can buy from any supplier at negotiated prices. The free market will be expanded from January 2024. The 246 plants awarded on the “day of forgiveness” would represent 9.9 GW (gigawatts) of power. For comparison, the entire Brazilian electrical matrix has 181.6 GW of power. In addition to them, another 66 projects, totaling 2.4 GW, postponed their schedules to start operations. “Is there still a group of projects that need flow margin? It’s possible so. But we are convinced that we did what was possible, because there is a physical issue here. It is not possible to add more projects, [por causa] of network capacity, so we now have to fulfill our obligation to the companies that won the auctions, which is to ensure compliance with the schedules and possibly even bring them forward”, added Feitosa. Brazil breaks record in renewable energy production Plants tried to maintain subsidies Since 2021, a change in the granting of subsidies to renewable energy plants led to a “race” to present projects to Aneel. According to the rule, subsidies in the tariffs that plants pay to connect to the system could only be applied to projects presented until March 2022. After the deadline, the discounts began to be progressively reduced, according to a schedule defined by law. Read also: Country has 1,000 authorized renewable energy projects, but without guaranteed connection to the electrical system Aneel creates ‘forgiveness day’ and allows termination of renewable energy contracts without fines Government is studying reducing the amount consumers pay for subsidies in the energy sector energy, says minister In a kind of flexibility, in December 2021, then-president Jair Bolsonaro (PL) issued a decree that caused Aneel to no longer require a document from the National Electric System Operator (ONS). The opinion proves the possibility of connecting the future plant to the national transmission system. This intensified the so-called “gold rush” to obtain generation permits, mainly for solar and wind power plants. Some of these plants obtained the opinion and signed contracts for the use of the system with the ONS. However, they were behind schedule or had not even started construction. The problem is that, with the contracts signed, these plants were creating a “reserve” in the system. To make room for other projects, Aneel decided to allow the contracts to be terminated. Row of plants without contracts There are, however, more than 1,000 projects without signed contracts and which were not attended to by the “day of forgiveness”. To g1, the general director of Aneel said that these cases will be analyzed individually. Without connection to the transmission system, it is not possible to transfer the energy produced to other locations. “Each situation of delay will be evaluated here by the inspectorate, which may or may not agree with the delay, possibly apply a penalty or propose a change to the schedule. We will have to look at it case by case,” he said. According to Feitosa, the 2021 decree made it clear that the company was responsible for obtaining the contract. “Not getting the connection is its own risk. So, what we understand is that this is the rule of the game”, he declared. The general director states that it is up to the agent to discuss with the ONS the possibility of connecting to the national transmission network. But the plant also has a deadline to meet with Aneel to present the contract and start operating, which will be evaluated by the agency’s inspection.

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