Increase in energy bill: amount charged will be more expensive in 2023 to cover water crisis, says Aneel

According to Aneel, the increase in the energy bill will happen because the Government needs to bear a loss of up to R$ 10,8 billion caused by the water crisis. The increase will only be in 2023

The National Electric Energy Agency (Aneel) informed that it needs up to R$ 10,8 billion to pay the costs of emergency measures carried out to help the energy sector. For this to be done, the Federal Government must take out a loan to settle this loss and not transfer the costs to consumers' energy bills in 2022. Focusing on the election year, the transfer will be frozen and will only come into effect from 2023, plus interest.

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Aneel will still define the amounts and conditions necessary for the loan, which was divided into two installments and has already been authorized by means of a Provisional Measure. The operation is related to the expenses of the water crisis, which is limited to R$ 5,6 billion, and will remain in public consultation for a period of 10 days. After this phase, the Aneel collegiate will review the agenda again to then transfer the resources to the distributors.

Costs that will cause your energy bill to increase

The first installment of the loan will be used to cover the balance of the Flag account scheduled for April, of R$ 1,5 billion, the costs of importing energy for the months of July and August, which add up to R$ 800 million; deferrals due to distributors, which add another R$ 1,6 billion; and, finally, the bonus for consumers who saved energy in the last year, calculated at R$ 1,7 billion.

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However, with regard to the value of the discount applied to consumers' energy bills, there are still disagreements. At that time, the Government had informed that this value would be R$ 2,4 billion.

The second installment, on the other hand, has a forecast sum of R$ 5,2 billion and would be used to cover the fixed revenue costs of thermoelectric plants, contracted in an emergency auction that was held in 2021, which were used to generate energy and contribute for the increase in the account.

Current President Jair Bolsonaro has already signed the decree providing for the loan, however, Aneel has not yet decided whether it will effectively contract the installment, with a deadline that should be made available by May.

Although the announcement of the value is available for public consultation, it has not yet been fully defined. This is due to the fact that the Aneel collegiate has already informed that it will need to periodically review the cost estimates, since the calculations carried out by the agency do not foresee the new restrictions imposed by the Federal Government for the use of thermal plants in the generation of energy.

This week, the Electric Sector Monitoring Committee (CMSE) defined that only plants with Variable Unit Cost (CVU) of up to R$ 600 megawatt-hour (MWh) can be activated. The amount of energy contracted and imported from this source was also limited.