Bolsonaro’s decree kicks off new financial aid to electric companies

President Jair Bolsonaro (PL) issued a decree, this Friday (14), which, in practice, gives the green light for Aneel (National Electric Energy Agency) to define the rules for a second round of loans coordinated by BNDES. to energy distributors. The measure tries to cover new differences in generation costs that, in the water crisis, reached exorbitant levels that made consumer bills more expensive.

At the end of 2020, when the water crisis became drastic, the government approved financial aid, via loans, totaling R$ 14.8 billion to balance the cash of distributors in the face of the explosion in generation costs.

Published in the Official Gazette this Friday (14), the decree creates the Water Scarcity Account, “intended to receive resources to cover, in whole or in part, the additional costs arising from the situation of water scarcity for concessionaires and permissionaires of public service of electricity distribution”.

A leaf showed, on the 4th, that the government’s delay in releasing the new round of loans to help the sector led companies to pay more than R$ 5 billion, according to Abradee (Brazilian Association of Electric Energy Distributors).

In a note, Palácio do Planalto says it hopes to “guarantee the health of the entire electrical system, in order to allow the rapid injection of resources into distributors and, at the same time, enable them to pass on to consumers the additional costs observed in the generation of energy. electricity is done smoothly and diluted in time”.

According to the decree, the Water Scarcity Account will receive funds from financial operations regulated by Aneel.

According to the decree, the distributors will need to prove the additional costs in the delivery of energy (more expensive), they will collect “the items considered eligible” and send them to Aneel, which, after approving them, will transfer the resources to be released by commercial banks.

The BNDES will only be responsible for organizing these loan operations.

According to Abradee, it is estimated that distributors have been operating since the end of last year with a deficit of R$ 14 billion in their accounts due to the contracting of more expensive energy from thermoelectric plants and from neighboring countries – Argentina and Uruguay. Since October of last year, the government authorized the dispatch of these thermal plants, which came to charge more than R$ 2 thousand per MWh (megawatt-hour).

“Now it will be possible to proceed so that the necessary financing can be given in the search for a balance in the energy bill. The difference is quite large, in the order of R$ 14 billion, which the distributors have already paid for the generators [inclusive importadores] “, said Marcos Madureira, president of Abradee.

According to Madureira, it will be up to Aneel to do the math to arrive at the final amount of the financing. This number will also depend on the amount of rainfall between January and March. The rains will define the tariff flag for the coming months. In addition, the agency will have to close the data on bonuses paid by distributors to consumers who joined the voluntary consumption reduction program.

By Abradee’s calculations, this program must have cost around R$ 1.7 billion so far.

Madureira estimates that the loans to be authorized will be less than R$ 14 billion because, at least until April, the tariff flag should remain high.

The information was confirmed by the Minister of Mines and Energy, Bento Albuquerque, in an interview with the newspaper O Globo. According to the minister, even with the heavy rains and the resumption of the water level in the hydroelectric reservoirs, the extra tariff charged on the electricity bill, the so-called water scarcity tariff flag, will remain in effect until April this year.

For it, each consumer pays R$ 14.20 more for every 100 kWh consumed. rate will remain at the high level to cover cost differences.

The water scarcity tariff was created by Aneel (National Electric Energy Agency) in August last year to cover the rise in these costs, which, according to the president of the Central Bank, Roberto Campos Neto, has put pressure on inflation to the point of bursting the center. of the target defined by the BC for last year – between 2.25% and 5.25%. Inflation measured by the IPCA was 10.06% in the period.