Aneel Opens Public Consultation on Brazil’s First Battery Auctions While Key Cost Rules Remain Unsettled

Overview

• Aneel voted to open a 30 July to 14 September public consultation and published draft editais that set participation and performance guarantees, require new equipment, and propose 15-year fixed capacity contracts with supply starting in August 2028.
• The Ministry of Mines and Energy scheduled two auctions for 2 and 4 December 2026, with one auction offering a national‑content track certified by BNDES and the other open to imported equipment.
• The agency has not decided how to apportion the levy that generators must pay under the 2025 law, and Director Fernando Mosna proposed a 15‑month transitional 'periodo sombra' that would test dividing curtailment losses only within each generation technology.
• The MME published a portaria that creates a conditional process to reimburse part of curtailments from 1 September 2023 to 25 November 2025, but payments require company adhesion and irrevocable waiver of disputes and involve procedural deadlines that can exceed 200 days.
• Key next steps are a public hearing in Brasília on 1 September, consultation closing on 14 September, a final edital expected by the end of October, and the December auctions, with unresolved cost allocation and repayment rules likely to shape investor bids and generator finances.