Transition coordinator defends pact against subsidies that make electricity bills more expensive

While Congress is debating new subsidies for renewable energies, the coordinator of the energy area of ​​the government transition, Maurício Tolmasquim, defended this Wednesday afternoon (30) a pact to contain the pressure of new benefits on Brazilians’ electricity bills.

“This is a drama that this country is experiencing, which will lead to the unfeasibility of our industrial competitiveness, the increase in the service sector, the loss of well-being for families”, he said.

Tolmasquim made the remarks at an event on energy security at FGV in Rio de Janeiro. He said it was a personal opinion and that there are still no measures being studied by the new government to face the problem. But he received support from large consumers and electricity distributors.

This Tuesday (29), Aneel (National Electric Energy Agency) reported that subsidies have already cost R$ 26 billion to energy consumers in 2022. The value is equivalent to 12.59% of the energy tariff in the period.

This cost includes subsidies to pay for fuel for thermal plants in isolated areas, for so-called incentivized energies, such as wind and solar, and for distributed energy generation, which reduces costs mainly for high-income families, banks and large retail chains. .

“This account is going to be priceless. It’s true, because there’s no magic”, said Tolmasquim. “There will have to be a pact, in which we will have to sit down the agents of the sector, the Congress and reach a kind of agreement”, he added.

He defends that the country should define priorities among the subsidized sectors and then define who pays the bill. The definition of how this will be done and in what order will be on the next government’s list of priorities, however, will be up to the ministry chosen by Lula.

The sector complains that, even with the cheaper sources of generation, such as solar and wind, the energy tariff continues to increase in order to pay benefits to certain sectors.

“The electricity sector cannot be used to solve world hunger, otherwise the consumer ends up being penalized”, says the president of the PSR consultancy, Luiz Barroso. “We have to go back a few steps and look at the price of energy, which today does not reflect the cost of security, does not reflect the cost of the operation.”

The president of Abradee (Brazilian Association of Electric Energy Distributors), Marcos Madureira, recalls that the new framework for distributed generation was approved less than a year ago and there is already a new bill expanding subsidies.

“And today a report comes out adding a lot of other things to further increase this gain”, he complains.

At this Wednesday’s event, the rapporteur for the bill opening the energy market in the country, federal deputy Fernando Coelho Filho (União Brasil-PE), said that he will not put the text to a vote before debating it with the new government, accepting the request of the transition team.

The project creates rules so that all electricity consumers in the country can choose their suppliers, as is already the case with industries and large companies.

The text, however, has points still questioned by segments such as distribution. One of them is the apportionment of the costs of thermal plants contracted to guarantee the safety of the system, currently done only by captive consumers of the distributors.

Tolmasquim said that this is a central question of the debate. “Why is energy cheaper for free than regulated consumers? Could it be that distributors are so inefficient?”, He questioned. “No. The regulated guarantees security of supply and the free consumer does not.”

According to him, the text proposed so far solves the apportionment for the future expansion of generation, but keeps the small consumer overloaded with the thermal plants already contracted. “It is a question that has to be thought about”, he said, stating again that the debate will be carried out by the new ministry.