With the collaboration of Gabriel Marins Lemos*
The year 2025 continues, in terms of energy tariffs, with the prospect of an average repositioning of around 4,67% for consumers in subgroup B (low voltage) throughout Brazil.
Most of this average increase – around 90% – is explained by increases in the cost elements of the Distribution System Usage Tariff (TUSD), with emphasis on the increases in TUSD CDE (+23%) and TUSD FIO B (+7,26%).
The estimate was calculated with SETE (Energy Tariff Estimation Service) and represents a market-weighted average for each of the country's 51 distribution concessionaires, without considering taxes or any additional tariff flag values, if they are activated.
In the projections, the increase in the TUSD CDE tariff is mainly associated with the increase in the cost of the Luz para Todos Program and the increase in subsidies for consumers of energy from incentivized sources in the free market.
In the first case, the increase is justified by the need to speed up the universalization process, in order to democratize access to electricity and combat energy poverty.
The increase in subsidies is due to the increased availability of energy from incentivized sources in the market, as well as the opening of the market to all consumers in group A, increasing the amounts of energy used by those classified as special.
The increase in TUSD Wire B remains under pressure from inflation, since Portion B is monetarily corrected by the IGPM, in this case PRORET, or IPCA, in the case of concession contracts governed by PRORET-A.
Regarding energy contracting, the expectation is an average increase of 12,51% for the values practiced, with a positive impact of 4,21% on the 2025 tariffs. This effect, however, is practically eliminated due to the PIS and COFINS tax credits and the expected reductions for TE ENCARGOS.
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Figure 1 – Projections of the average variation of tariff components in 2025 for low voltage consumers. Source: SETE Platform (Service for Energy Tariff Estimation), from TR Soluções
The reduction in TE ENCARGOS, in turn, is associated with the payment of loans from the covid account and the water scarcity account, as well as the fact that the CDE GD quota was set at zero this year.
The payment of the loans resulted from the operationalization of Provisional Measure 1.212/2024. As for the charge, the National Electric Energy Agency (Aneel) understood that the amounts previously authorized in the last two tariff events were already sufficient to cover its costs in the 2025 fiscal year.
Variations between distributors
It is important to highlight that simply presenting average information is far from describing the expected sectoral panorama for tariff repositioning. After all, as former minister Delfim Netto said, “if someone has their tail in the oven and their head in the fridge, you can’t say that they have an optimal average temperature.”
Therefore, it is also important to observe the expected frequency distribution for these repositionings and thus circumvent, at least in part, the “myopia” induced by average information. The observation frequencies of the projections, by number of dealerships and intervals, are presented in the following graph.
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Chart 1 – Frequency of observation of projections. Source: SETE Platform, from TR Soluções
Finally, always considering specifically consumers connected at low voltage, the data also show that 68% of distributors will present repositionings between -3,4% and 12,8%, and that, as the graph shows, the maximum variation should be an increase of 28,87%, while the smallest should be a drop of 10,38%.
* Specialist in Tariff Regulation and Electric Energy Market at TR Soluções
The opinions and information expressed are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily represent the official position of the author. Canal Solar.
