The Electrical Sector Monitoring Committee will hold, this Thursday (19), in Rio de Janeiro, an extraordinary meeting in which a contingency plan must be presented to avoid blackouts and guarantee the security of the electricity supply in the country until 2026 .
The government has shown concern about the issue because Brazil is going through and, with the arrival of heat, must face higher peaks in consumption.
The committee is made up of the main authorities in the electricity sector: minister and secretaries of the Ministry of Mines and Energy, National Electric Energy Agency (Aneel), National Electric System Operator (ONS) and Energy Research Company, among others.
This directly impacts energy production in hydroelectric plants. The rivers that supply the power plants’ reservoirs are damaged, especially in the north of the country.
The consequence is the activation of thermal plants, which are more expensive and pollute more, or the use of strategic water reserves in other plants to face the dry period in the Southeast and Central-West regions.
With the activation of thermoelectric plants, for example, there was a change in the level of tariff flags to the maximum level in September, which increases the electricity bill by around 10%.
One of the main challenges of the electricity sector has been precisely the so-called “peak hours”, when demand for energy peaks, between 6pm and 7pm. This is a time when solar parks stop producing photovoltaic energy and wind farms tend to produce less, due to the low intensity of the winds, which are generally stronger at night and early in the morning.
In 2014, these two renewable generation sources represented only 2.2% of the electrical matrix. Today, it accounts for more than 20% of all energy produced in the country. This means that when they are not available, the system as a whole is more vulnerable.
In this case, it is necessary to activate hydroelectric plants with more intensity — consuming more water stored in reservoirs — or connecting thermal plants to natural gas, coal or oil.
Return of daylight saving time
At the committee meeting, the proposed return of . In an interview with Itatiaia radio this week, the Minister of Mines and Energy, Alexandre Silveira, said that daylight saving time is now a “very pressing” reality from an energy point of view, even to prevent electricity bills from rising.
Daylight saving time was abolished in 2019, in the first year of the government of former president Jair Bolsonaro (PL), on the grounds that energy savings were low and did not justify the measure.
By setting the clock forward one hour in the summer months, you can take advantage of natural light for an extended period.
In this way, when a large part of the population arrives home after work, the need to turn on devices such as electric lamps decreases, which can reduce demand.
In cities, urban public lighting is also activated later than usual, which alleviates the load.
