Fonte: ANEEL

Today (07/16), the Brazilian Electricity Regulatory Agency (Aneel) performed another stage of the public hearing for the second periodical tariff readjust of Energisa Paraíba Distribuidora de Ebergia S/A. The public meeting was carried out in the city of João Pessoa (PB). The concessionaire serves 1.025 million consuming units in 216 cities of Paraíba.

The presential hearing, chaired by the director of Aneel, Edvaldo Santana, was attended by about 150 people, of which 22 presented suggestions live. Among the participants, there were representatives of neighborhood associations, unions, Municipal Chamber, city hall, the CUT (Employees’ Unique Center) and consumers in general. During the hearing, the main points raised by participants who presented contributions were, among others, the high tributary rates on energy tariffs, the variation in prices from one year to another and the suggestion of differentiated tariffs for sectors like water and health.

Aneel’s proposal for EPB foresees a reduction of -12.31% in tariffs low voltage consumers (residential) and an average increase of 1.06% in tariffs for high voltage consumers(industries).

The distributor’s definite review index will go into effect on August 28, 2009, after the analysis of contributions received during the public hearing process. Documents related to the proposals will be available on the “A Aneel” profile, at the link Audiências/Consultas/Fórum/Audiência Ano2009 of the www.aneel.gov.brwebsite.

The second cycle of the tariff review started in 2007 and 43 distributors have already had their results of the second tariff review approved in the first two years. In 2009, the second cycle ends with the carrying out of the process for 18 distributors.

The tariff review is foreseen in the concession contracts with the purpose of obtaining the balance of tariffs based on the remuneration of the companies’ investments aimed towards distribution service rendering and expense coverage effectively recognized by Aneel. It is applied to the distribution leasers every four years, on average.

Continuity Indicators – For the second cycle of the tariff review, Aneel will also put in a public hearing, along with the preliminary tariff index, the goals for the next four years (2010 to 2013) for the continuity indicators that measure the duration (DEC) and frequency (FEC) of interruptions in the electricity supply which take place in the sets of consumer units served by the company.

The DEC indicates the average time that the consumer units went without energy and the FEC indicates the average number of times interruptions in the supply for these units took place. Besides the group indicators, the distribution leasers’ service is evaluated by individual indicators known as DIC (Individual Interruption Duration per Consumer Unit) and FIC (Individual Interruption Frequency per Consumer Unit), which measure, respectively, the duration and frequency of the interruptions in the energy supply to each consumer unit.