tortoises could cost consumers R$40 billion

This week, the Chamber of Deputies approved ground zero for offshore wind energy, that is, on the high seas. The regulation of the supply and concession of exploration in these areas is highly anticipated by the market, which is keeping an eye on the maritime potential.

What was not expected was that the bill would be full of “tortoises”, as additions unrelated to the original text are called. Privileges for certain generators, smuggled into the offshore wind project, will be costly. And, as always happens in the electricity sector, they will be paid for by the consumer. The impact on the electricity bill could reach R$40 billion per year.

In addition to being polite to other people’s hats, some of the tortoises approved by the Chamber have the luxury of benefiting from energy generation from fossil sources – and this within a project that originally regulated the exploitation of wind sources, considered renewable.

One of the contrabands extends until 2050 the contracting of coal-fired thermal plants whose contracts would end by December 2028. The text also sets criteria to define the sale price of this energy.

Another tortoise should make it more expensive to contract energy from natural gas thermoelectric plants linked to the privatization of Eletrobras. When Congress authorized the sale of the state-owned company, it incorporated into law the government’s obligation to contract thermal plants where there is currently no natural gas supply.

The last-minute gimmicks, which have nothing to do with energy driven by wind on the high seas, were included by the rapporteur, deputy Zé Vitor (PL-MG).

He denied that the proposal encourages new thermal plants or energy using coal: “These are existing contracts, thermal plants in operation that would have expired contracts.”

The text was approved by the Chamber and will now be analyzed by the Senate.

The Brazilian Association of Large Energy Consumers and Free Consumers (Abrace) considered the decision of the Chamber of Deputies “inexplicable” and said that, in this way, the electricity sector is increasingly moving away from its potential to offer clean, cheap and safe energy in the country.

“Once again, consumers lose out and will face a bitter bill: R$40 billion per year to generate coal plants, extend subsidies for sources that do not need them and force the purchase of expensive, polluting and unnecessary thermal generation for the system”, said the entity in a note.

In Abrace’s calculations, the extension of the contraction of coal-fired thermal plants will cost around R$5 billion and the end of the ceiling price for gas-fired thermal plants in the North, Northeast and Central-West regions, at around R$16 billion .

The União pela Energia movement, which brings together 70 Brazilian industry associations, sent an open letter to President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, asking for specific interventions that promote privileges and distortions such as those that mark the Brazilian electricity sector to be avoided.

“Amendments to bills without direct relation to the main theme of the proposals seek to meet specific and very personal interests, in the most varied forms of subsidies, market reserves, quotas, transfers of inefficiencies and compulsory purchase policies, without, in a transparent, consider the collective and the benefit for the whole society”, says the text.