Haddad says the government is concerned about the cost of energy

The cost of energy represents one of the government’s main current concerns, said this Monday (1st) the Minister of Finance, Fernando Haddad. He met at the Palácio do Planalto with President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and the ministers of the Civil House, Rui Costa, and of Mines and Energy, Alexandre Silveira, to discuss the oil and solar energy generation schedule with the transmission line auctions.

“I believe that Minister Alexandre even spoke about this issue publicly. So that generation and transmission schedules are compatible. We are involved because we are concerned about the cost of energy. We want to generate cheap energy to be able to try to solve this problem that has accumulated over the years”, declared the minister upon returning from the meeting.

The government wants to reduce electricity bills by 3.5% this year. One of the measures concerns the delay in transmission line auctions. Last week, the first auction of its kind in 2024 raised R$18.2 billion in investments.

Law 14,120, of 2021, established 48 months for new energy generators to use tariff discounts. The government wants to extend the deadline by 36 months because most of the projects did not get off the ground due to a lack of transmission lines that were not auctioned.

According to the minister, some deadlines were not met because the transmission lines had not been tendered. “There were already authorizations, but some deadlines were not met due to the fact that there was no bidding for the transmission lines. As this process has now been completed, you can open it to see if there is an expression of interest. In fact, it’s that thing where the generation and transmission schedules have become mismatched,” he declared.

The eventual extension of subsidies for renewable energy plants, declared the minister, will have no cost to the government. “We are involved because we are concerned about the cost of energy. We want to generate cheap energy to try to solve this problem that has accumulated over the years”, explained Haddad.