Wilson Dias / Abr

 

Jirau - Madeira River

Plants of River Madeira should be the first benefited by resources provided for in the PM

The House Floor concluded on Tuesday (12), the voting of PM 450/08, which authorizes the Union, the states and the Federal District to participate in the Guarantee Fund for Electric-Power Undertakings (FGWW). That fund will provide guarantees to the banks which finance the construction of hydroelectric power plants and transmission lines. That matter depends now on presidential sanction.

Six amendments from the Senate to the text from Deputy Eduardo Cunha (PMDB-RJ) were approved. Those amendments adjust the laws on the concession of electric Power.

The main innovation made by Cunha remains unchanged: he extended to the undertakings of states’ companies of power generation the guarantee’s mechanism provided for in the PM, provided that there is the authorization of the legislative Houses. Before that, only the works in which the federal companies participated could be guaranteed with resources from that fund.

The fund will be administered by the federal bank, and will benefit the undertakings considered as strategic, or those provided for in the Growth Acceleration Program (PAC). That guarantee should be proportional to the participation of government companies in the sector, through the so-called specific-purpose societies (SPE).

Madeira River
The plants of Jirau and Santo Antônio, in Madeira River (RO), should be the first ones to be benefited. The financing of those works has been having trouble in granting insurance guarantees in the international market, since the financial crisis. Since there is no company in Brazil which provides guarantees for the forecast costs (R$21 billion), the government decided to create FGEE.

The main national private banks do not show any interest in financing those works, which should be partially financed by BNDES, Caixa Econômica Federal (Federal Savings Bank) and by the Bank of the Amazon.

Streamlined bidding process
The text still holds the permit for the President of the Republic to define, by a decree, a streamlined form for bidding processes for Eletrobrás and the companies controlled by it to acquire goods and services.

Petrobrás has already been entitled to that possibility since1997 (by means of Law 9478), and the government asked for that mechanism to be extended to Eletrobrás.

The opposition parties and some of the government’s basis (PSB, PDT and PV), tried to withdraw the PM from that device, by it was maintained, by 101 votes against 185.

Hydraulic Potential
One of the approved amendments changes the rules for the usage of the rivers’ hydraulic potential by independent producers of by companies which consume all power they produce.

The text from the Chamber transferred to the National Agency for Electric Power (Aneel) the granting of authorizations for the use of that potential, if it were higher than 30,000 kW and up to 50,000 kW. The senate included a potential higher than 1,000 kW, and up to 30,000 kW, eliminating, in all cases, the requirement that the plants do not have any features of small hydroelectric central. Thus, the use of energy will reach the stripe from 1000 kW to 50,000kW.

That amendment also eliminates the obligation to sell, at least, 70% of the power to the so-called “regulated environment”, in which its trade is centered at the Electric-Power Contracts Administrator.

The amendment also determines that the authorizations for the use of the hydraulic potential, regarding small centrals or not, be granted to corporations constituted according to Brazilian Law, with headquarters and administration in Brazil. The companies, whose direct or indirect corporate control is mostly domestic capital, should be preferred.

Isolated system
The deputies approved the amendment, which includes the generation concessionaires in isolated systems among those which can participate in bidding processes for the expansion of the energy offer. Isolated systems are those in which the production centrals are not connected with the intermeshed net of power distribution for all Brazil.

Law 10.848/04, which reformulated the concession rules for that sector, defines that only the new power-generation undertakings can participate in bids aiming at the increase in energy offer.

The text of the Chamber for the MP had already permitted the bidding to undertakings holding that authorization. In both situations – isolated and authorized systems – the requirements that they have not started commercial operation or are not registered at the Chamber for the Trade of Electric Energy (CCEE) remain.

Renewal of contracts with the industries
The approval, by the Senate, of another amendment to the Provisional Measure 450/08, allows the renewal of the validity of power-supply contracts closed with large industrial consumers until June 30th, 2015. Those companies depend on large amounts of energy to operate (such as steelworks), and the old contracts should have been substituted according to the new rules established in Law 10.604/02.

According to its rapporteur, the amendment assists Chesf, a subsidiary of Eletrobrás, which detains contracts with industrial consumers in Bahia. Those contracts should have been remade directly with energy generators, which did not happen. With that amendment, those companies will remain in the regulated market until 2015.

Alternative energy
The House Floor also accepted an amendment which enables, until December 30th, 2010, the addendum to the contracts of Eletrobrás with companies which had trouble with events of force majeure to start their activities in the scope of the Program of Incentives for Alternative Energy Sources (Proinfa)

Proinfa ensures the purchase of energy for 20 years, based on the floors of the average national fee for biomass energy, energy produced by small hydroelectric power plants and wind-energy.

According to Eduardo Cunha, that is a legal solution for Eletrobrás, and for those companies, since the final term for the beginning of the operation of those generators ended on December 30th, 2008.

Potential studies
The deputies approved the amendment from the Senate, which determines the complying with the rules of the creation Law of the Energetic Research Company (EPE), to explicit that the performing of studies on the energy-generation potential of alternative sources will not be exclusive to EPE.

The last approved amendment only changes a wording detail in the law on public-services’ licenses (9.074/95), to guarantee the right of access of independent energy producers to the net of the companies working with the transmission and distribution of electric power.

Transference to BNDES
The MP authorizes the Union to transfer to BNDES US$2 billion (the equivalent to approximately R$4.5 billion), raised with the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD). Those resources will be transferred in the same financial conditions offered by Bird. According to the government, that amount will help the bank facing the world financial crisis.

Still regarding BNDES, that PM creates the possibility that National Treasure requires from that bank, a compatible remuneration with the internal raising cost for those R$15 billion, which have already been authorized for the institution, and reinforce its loans in the long run.

That amount was authorized in August 2008, and initially the Treasure intended to obtain resources in Reais abroad; but, with the worsening of the international credit crisis, the raising costs, which would be supported by BNDES, have become very high. Therefore the PM provides for the raising of domestic financing.

States social security
MP postponed until December 31st, 2008, the possibility that the states anticipate the redemption of financial certificates of the Treasure, issued for their funds or social-security savings, trading those titles for others with broader expiration dates.

As that MP was published in the beginning of December, the redemption has already been done and the financial relief was given to the states, from which Santa Catarina was the neediest – due to the rains in Vale do Itajaí.

Report - Eduardo Piovesan
Editing - João Pitella Junior
Translation - Positive Idiomas Ltda