The MME (Ministry of Mines and Energy) announced, in September 2019, the decision to implement the hourly price in two phases. The first of these came into effect in January of this year, when the ONS (National Electric System Operator) adopted Dessem (Very Short Term Hydrothermal Dispatch Model) in the operating schedule.
The objective of the measure adopted by the ONS was to bring efficiency gains in plant dispatch and increase information symmetry between companies in the sector.
In the second phase, which will be implemented in January 2021, the CCEE (Electric Energy Trading Chamber) will adopt Dessem in the calculation of the PLD (Difference Settlement Price), in the accounting and settlement of the short-term market – which will increase service and product options for consumers.
According to Bernardo Marangon, specialist in electrical energy markets and director of Exata Energia, it is important to highlight that the arrival of the hourly price from next year in the commercial scope of the electrical sector does not affect photovoltaic DG (distributed generation).
“This change will only have effect on Mercado Livre participants. For ACL (Free Contracting Environment) solar projects, it will certainly have a positive effect, as prices are higher at times when there is greater demand for energy, precisely the time when the projects are generating the most energy”, Marangon pointed out.
Hourly price must go through adjustment processes
For Mateus Tolentino, partner and director of Middle Office at Prime Energy, there was an evolution with the model adopted in the first phase of the hourly price, which, according to him, had as main objective to reduce the difference between the operation predicted by the computational models and the operation in real time.
“However, it is important to note that there are still points of adjustment to bring planning even closer to the operation. It was a year of adjustments to ONS's own processes in a process of continuous improvement”, highlighted Tolentino.
The executive commented that, from the PLD point of view, the second phase of the hourly price is expected to provide an economic signal to agents who are more adhering to real-time operations. “In this process, we will have 'winners' and 'losers' and the biggest winners will be agents with operational flexibility who will be able to adapt to the indicated price signals.”
“For example, in a time of energy shortage at a time of high consumption (typically in summer from 12pm to 16pm) a higher price signal is expected, which will penalize consumers with this consumption profile and benefit generators that may generate at that time or consumers who may stop consuming,” explained the expert.
“The doubt that persists is whether the indicated price signal will be enough to encourage agents to operate in this market. In other words, will the hourly price profile be enough to encourage the installation of batteries or a change in the generation/consumption profile of agents?”, asked Tolentino.
