EN 
PT_BR 
The vice-president of GD at ABSOLAR (Brazilian Association of Photovoltaic Solar Energy), Bárbara Rubim, participated this Friday (05) in Solar Talks, an online event promoted by Aldo Solar, which included the participation of Canal Solar. During the webinar, she commented on the prospects for the review of REN 482 and said that the process should be completed no later than the first quarter of 2021.
“ANEEL (National Electric Energy Agency) has already collected all the contributions it had to receive from the sector, a stage of the process that ended in December last year. Now, she is analyzing all these contributions, which were more than 180. Then, she will decide whether to maintain, from a regulatory point of view, the proposal she presented on the day October 15, 2019, which was outrageous, in my view, or whether it will review the proposal and administratively bring some other solution to the sector from a review point of view”, said Bárbara, adding that, despite not being officially suspended, REN 482 some deadlines were suspended.
According to her, after ANEEL's new proposal to change Normative Resolution 482 – which disregarded the main benefits of distributed generation, such as the postponement of investments in electricity transmission and distribution systems and the relief in networks due to the neighborhood effect – there was a mobilization of society against the agency's measures, which cast doubt on the future of the photovoltaic solar energy sector in Brazil.
“Consequently, this mobilization reached Congress, which has been involved in the review of REN 482 since last year. In this case, there is a strong pre-disposition from Congress for the matter to be resolved via law and not through a normative resolution. However, the reality is that Congress, like any other public administration body, is only looking at topics related to the pandemic and post-pandemic, such as economic recovery and rescue measures”, explained the vice-president of GD at ABSOLAR .
As an association, ABSOLAR is maintaining a constant dialogue with parliamentarians to address solar energy. “We have meetings throughout the week with several parliamentarians. We talked not only about the perspective of 482, but also about the perspective of economic recovery, as we believe that renewables can play an essential role in the recovery package. Furthermore, we are maintaining a dialogue to maintain the issue of the arrival of a PL to defend the DG sector in a broader way, so that this, in fact, begins to be processed as soon as Congress returns to its normal operations”, highlighted Barbara.
She also believes that ANEEL will wait for Congress to approve a PL for the sector as far as possible, which would be by the end of this year or beginning of next year. “So, if they do not approve a bill by March 2021, the agency must release a new normative resolution, which will undoubtedly not be as beneficial as a PL coming from Congress, since ANEEL has adopted the stance that the proposals they have to be supported in a public policy context. In this case, it would not have the competence to support this public policy and, therefore, would have to make a decision with a shorter transition period”, he concluded.
New rule for GD
Before the coronavirus impacted the photovoltaic energy sector, it was expected that the law with new rules for distributed generation in Brazil would be approved by July. However, according to André Pepitone, general director of ANEEL, the measures will be postponed.
For the vice-president of GD at ABSOLAR, Bárbara Rubim, the expectation is that Congress will approve a bill for the distributed generation sector by December 2020. “If Congress returns to work from August, which is the forecast At the moment, we should have a PL approved by the end of the year. If there is a new peak in the pandemic and things close again, this perspective could extend. The external scenario could impact the functioning of Congress for more months, thus making it difficult to approve a bill”, commented Bárbara.
So far, federal deputies Beto Pereira (MS-PSDB) and Lafayette Andrada (Republicanos-MG) have presented bills to establish new rules for distributed generation consumers. All proposals were made urgent, but will still be discussed by the Chamber of Deputies and the Federal Senate.
