Brazil postpones this year’s electric power auctions

Brazil’s Ministry of Mines and Energy has indefinitely postponed the electricity auctions scheduled for 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic.

The auctions were for generation and transmission contracts, designed to meet the future energy needs of distributors and for the expansion of the transmission network. 

The postponement had been expected by the market, and new dates will be announced in due course, once the public health situation has normalised, according to a note from Demarest Advogados, authored by partner Raphael Gomes (pictured).

Brazil was due to hold six tenders to contract power generation projects this year. Two were designed to buy electricity from existing plants (the A1 and A2 auctions in December) and another two were for new projects (the A4 and A6 auctions initially scheduled for April and September, respectively). The A4 and A5 tenders, which were also previously scheduled for April, were intended to contract power supply from new plants and existing units simultaneously for the first time, replacing diesel-fired plants with less expensive and less polluting gas-fired units.