The National Electric Energy Agency (Aneel) contracted 729.2 megawatts (MW) in the auction to supply energy to the North Region, held this morning (30). The supply, scheduled to start in December 2026, was below the objective of the event, which was to make 1,000 megawatts available to the region for 15 years.
There were no offers to contract 300 MW for Maranhão and 700 MW for Piauí, which were also presented at the auction. In total, 2,000 MW were expected to be contracted, with 1,300 MW not being offered.
The supply to the North Region will be made by three thermoelectric plants powered by natural gas, which offered electricity at the maximum price stipulated for the auction of R$ 444.00 per megawatt-hour.
Sparta, part of the Eneva Group, plans to invest almost R$ 1.7 billion in each of two gas power plants that it will build with a capacity of 295.4 MW. Global Participações em Energia must invest R$ 783 million to offer 160.8 MW of power.
Today’s auction takes place as stipulated in the law that made the privatization of Eletrobras possible. According to the project approved by the National Congress, it was determined that 8,000 MW of thermoelectric plants powered by natural gas should be contracted.
Despite not having managed to hire half of what was expected, Aneel’s executive auction manager, André Patrus Pimenta, classified the process as “success”. “We have no reason to understand that there was frustration,” he said after the results were released.
For him, the lack of proposals showed investors’ lack of interest in offering this type of infrastructure in the region. “The market has signaled to the auction that there is no interest in those areas,” he noted.
The deputy secretary for Energy Planning and Development of the Ministry of Mines and Energy, Frederico Teles, said that the government will carry out an assessment based on the legal frameworks that stipulated the contracting of thermoelectric plants before deciding what will be done from now on, once that there was no planned contract. “Technically, we understand that we did everything we could. Now, let’s reassess legally what are the next steps that have to be taken.”
