EN 
PT_BR 
A total of 14,345 companies have already decided to migrate to the Free Energy Market between 2024, according to a survey based on data updated by ANEEL (National Electric Energy Agency) on December 31, 2023.
ABRACEEL (Brazilian Association of Electric Energy Traders) announced this Wednesday (25) that this total was 14,623 companies, but the data also considered the year 2025.
The Free Energy Market is a commercial environment where consumers can choose their own energy supplier, negotiate price and contracting conditions, restricting distributors to the role of energy carrier.
According to a survey carried out by Solar Channel, 13,558 (94.5%) companies are retail consumers, that is, with a load of less than 500 kW. This category of consumers represents those benefiting from Ordinance 50/22 of the MME (Ministry of Mines and Energy), which came into force on January 1, 2024.
In total, the more than 14.3 thousand companies represent a load of 995 MWmed, with 617.72 MWmed being the combined load of retail consumers.
Free consumers with loads above 500 kV total 788 units, totaling 378 MWmed. This category represents large energy consumers, so much so that the average demand is 1,434 kilowatts, compared to 152 kV for retailers.
The report shows the concentration of retail loads by distributors. The top ten are:
- ENEL SP (10.83%)
- Copel D (9.06%)
- Celesc D (7.4%)
- CPFL Paulista (7,15%)
- RGE (5.18%)
- Cemig D (5,54%)
- Light (5.02%)
- CPFL Piratininga (4,93%)
- Enel Ceará (4,59%)
- Neoenergia Coelba (4,27%)
Note: data is based on average consumption (MWmed) per distributor.
According to ABRACEEL, retail consumers are those with energy costs above R$ 10 thousand, while free consumers have bills above R$ 150 thousand.
Under Ordinance 50/22, retail consumers are obliged to purchase energy from retail suppliers. Currently, around 100 companies are qualified to provide this service, according to the latest balance released by the CCEE (Electric Energy Commercialization Chamber).
Group A has around 202 thousand consumer units, mainly companies, which receive medium and high voltage energy. Of these, more than 37 thousand are already on the Free Energy Market, so the migration potential is approximately 165 thousand consumer units from 2024 onwards.
Thus, the free market can more than quadruple in the number of consumers and meet approximately 48% of the country's electricity consumption in the coming years. Currently, Mercado Livre has a share of 37% in national electricity consumption.
According to ABRACEEL, this new phase in the opening of the Brazilian electricity market, the largest in history, is very positive and will benefit thousands of companies that will save money by purchasing electricity and will be able to allocate the resources saved for investments in productive and personal activity, which will contribute to the generation of jobs, the slowdown in inflation and the increase in productivity of the national economy.
For ABRACEEL, the opening of Mercado Livre for Group A is the first step towards complete opening, which could benefit 89 million consumers, including residential consumers. In the world, 35 countries have a Free Energy Market accessible to all consumers.
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