Fonte: ANEEL

Several companies showed interest in financing/executing strategic Research and Development (R&D) projects announced by the Brazilian Electricity Regulatory Agency (Agência Nacional de Energia Elétrica – ANEEL). In all, 34 showed interest in call No. 015/2013 “Impact Management of Severe Climatic Events in the Electricity Sector. See the list here.

The need for a call on this issue came from the perception that in recent years several technical and academic  studies have pointed out vulnerabilities and uncertainties that the electrical system is exposed to in a scenario of global climate change.

As these studies point out mainly impacts on generation, the Call’s proposal is to develop new tools and procedures to allow transmission and distribution segments to act preventively during natural disasters in order to reduce the impact and hasten the restoration and reconstruction of the electrical network.

Wind energy

Whereas in Call No. 017/2013 entitled “Development of National Wind Generation Technology”, there was interest from 42 companies, such as Cemig, Rio Grande Energia S.A, Copel Geração e Transmissão, among others. See here the list.

This Call serves as an incentive to national technological development of the productive chain for the wind energy industry, with focus on the incentive to reduce the cost of equipment and components in the professional and technological production chain of wind energy in the regulatory improvement and optimization of energy resources, considering the integrated resource planning and the integration of wind power and other available sources.

The next step is to send strategic project proposals, which will have a mandatory and live initial evaluation, besides the accompanying of the execution of the project through periodic meetings. The approval of the project will take place only after the evaluation of the results reached, resources employed and investments made. In the choice of the projects, preference will be given to cooperative studies, seeking the standardization of criteria. More information at the links “Educação/Pesquisa e Desenvolvimento – Pesquisa e Desenvolvimento – Temas para Investimentos em P&D (Education/Research and Development – Research and Development – Themes for Investments in R&D)”.

The requirement in the use of resources in R&D is established by law and in the concession contracts, while it is up to the Agency to regulate investment in the program, to monitor the implementation of projects and evaluate their results. The legislation establishes that concessionaires, permittees or parties authorized for distribution, transmission and generation of electricity must apply annually a minimum percentage of their net operating revenue in the R & D Program for the electricity sector. (PG/AC)