Chamber resuscitates Brasduto and adds cost to electricity bill

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The proposal for Brasduto, a network of gas pipelines to serve some private groups in this area with public money, already called pipelines, returned to Congress. This time, the source of funds is a new transmission tariff that will be paid, via electricity bill, by all Brazilians. In practice, the gas pipelines would become an installation of the basic electricity transmission network in Brazil.

“We win [fazendo a proposta ser rejeitada]he comes back, we win and he comes back, but if Brasduto wins once, it’s forever”, says Paulo Pedrosa, president of Abrace (Brazilian Association of Large Energy Consumers and Free Consumers).

This new tariff was already instituted a few days ago by an amendment by deputy Rodrigo de Castro (PSDB-MG) within PL (bill) 2316/22. The text is still in the Economic Development, Industry, Commerce and Services Commission and needs to go through the rite in other commissions, but the alteration and its risks have already been identified by the technicians of Abrace.

The report tried to contact Deputy Rodrigo de Castro, but did not receive a response until the publication of this text.

Other amendments in the same bill amend the Gas Law, limiting the power of the Union to create a national market and favoring the concentration of business by state distributors in the gas sector.

The gas pipeline network has become vital to enable the installation of 8 GW (gigawatts) of gas-fired thermal plants that must be built in the coming years. The requirement was included in the law that allowed the privatization of Eletrobras and, as it had nothing to do with this issue, it was named “thermal tortoise”.

The projects are controversial because they go against the logic of the market. The law determines that the plants be built in places far from the gas supply, hence the need for a pipeline network, and also in points without a transmission line.

To serve this entire system, it would be necessary to create 5,000 km of pipelines, at a cost of R$ 84 billion. Such an amount would lead to a 30% increase in the transmission fee. As the transmission represents 15% of the final tariff for the consumer, the gas pipelines would cause a 5% increase in the electricity bill, according to estimates by Abrace

To operationalize the entire 8 GW system, however, the expense would be even greater. Considering the gas pipelines, the reinforcement in the transmission system and that the energy from gas-fired thermal plants is more expensive, the increase for the consumer would be around 10%, estimates the entity

Different versions of Brasduto have already been presented by congressmen. The onslaughts, however, were blocked by organized opposition from entities in the energy sector, who consider the project costly and inefficient.

In the previous attempt, the proposal was to use part of the resources from oil royalties, destined for education, to form a fund of R$ 100 billion aimed at the construction of the pipeline network. Congress even approved it, but the measure was vetoed by President Jair Bolsonaro (PL).

This time, the cost would be camouflaged as yet another electricity tariff.

The lack of gas pipelines has already frustrated the first auction of these thermal plants under the Eletrobras Law, held on September 30th. At the time, 2 GW were offered. Of this total, 1 GW was in metropolitan areas in the North region and another 1 GW in the Northeast, 700 MW in Piauí and 300 MW in Maranhão.

Only 754 MW were purchased for the North region. There were no bids for the Northeast region, and the lack of interested parties was attributed precisely to the inexistence of the gas pipeline, especially in Piauí.

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