ANEEL extends ban on power outages until July 31

A ANEEL (National Electric Energy Agency) decided, this Monday (15), to extend until July 31 the ban on cutting off electricity supply due to default by urban and rural residential consumer units.

The measure is one of the actions defined in Resolution 878, approved in March, which defines other measures to guarantee the continuity of the electricity distribution service and the protection of consumers and concessionaire employees due to the crisis caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.

Also according to the decision, the measure impacts services and activities considered essential by legislation, such as medical and hospital care, hospital units, medico-legal institutes, hemodialysis and blood storage centers, among others.

The following decisions are also valid until July 31st:

• Allow distributors to temporarily suspend in-person service to the public, as a measure to preserve the health of their employees and the population, in compliance with restrictions imposed by acts of public authorities;
• Prioritization of telephone calls for urgent and emergency requests;
• Intensify the use of automatic means of service for the functioning of the SAC (Consumer Service);
• Suspend the deadlines for requesting compensation for damage to equipment. According to the ANEEL, this measure is necessary, since the reimbursement process involves technicians going to the consumer's home to check the damage;
• Allow the suspension of delivery of printed monthly invoices to consumers’ addresses. The distributor must send electronic invoices or barcodes to consumers through electronic channels or make them available on its website or application;
• Allow distributors to carry out consumption readings at different intervals than usual or even not to carry out readings at all. When there is no reading, billing will be based on the arithmetic average of consumption over the last 12 months for residential units. The distributor must provide means for the consumer to report self-reading of the meter, as an alternative to billing based on the average;
• For non-residential consumers, if the reading is not carried out by the distributor (remotely or in person) nor is there any means available for self-reading, the distributor must invoice at the cost of availability or billable demand. Average billing can only be carried out if, even if the distributor has provided the means for self-reading, the consumer does not perform it;
• The interruption of any services or service channels by the distributor must be preceded by broad communication to the population, and such information must be kept prominently on its website and all possible measures must be taken to minimize impacts;
• The distributor must prioritize urgent and emergency care, the reestablishment of the service in case of interruption or suspension due to non-performance, requests for connection or increase in load to population treatment sites and those that do not require works to carry out;
• Concessionaires must also preserve and prioritize the supply of energy to services and activities considered essential;
• It is up to the distributors to prepare a specific contingency plan for the care of medical and hospital units and places used to treat the population, including checking the availability and operating tests of generation units or the possibility of relocating the load;
• They must also reduce scheduled shutdowns, keeping only those that are strictly necessary.

In addition to the immediate extension of the effects of Resolution 878, the ANEEL will also open a public consultation (CP 16/38) on Tuesday (2020) to discuss with society how the possibility of cutting off the supply of defaulters will gradually return from August 1st, in addition to how the return of face-to-face service and other obligations of distributors will be carried out.

rThe consultation will be open until June 30th. Contributions must be made using a form available at aneel.gov.br, on the CP 38/2020 page.​