First Wind-Only Energy Auction in Brazil Moved to December 18

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Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--Brazil's first exclusive auction for wind power reserve energy has been postponed to December 18, 2009. The auction originally was set for the end of 2008, then for the initial months of this year, and later for November 25.

Empresa de Pesquisa Energética (EPE) (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil), an energy research public firm within the aegis of the Ministry of Energy and Mines, is in charge of the collection and technical analysis of the participation dossiers.

EPE officials have said that more than half of the 441 participants submitted their complete dossiers either on or near the deadline, which was November 3, leaving EPE with little time to review submissions from all participants. After this, EPE has to make an assessment of whether and which projects are acceptable or not, and then forwarded it to ANEEL, Brazil's federal energy regulatory agency, for final participation approval.

That is the reason that motivated the auction to be rescheduled for December 18, 2009. On the other hand, postponement should make it possible to attend to other issues that would have probably gone unresolved if the auction had been held earlier.

In particular, these have to do with lowering the minimum acceptable offer, moving the threshold from 1 megawatt (MW) down to 0.1 MW, which should give more opportunities to small windfarms. Also, the specific way through which facilities will connect to the grid has yet to be determined.

It is expected that 1,000 to 2,000 MW, represents 7.5% to 15% of all the participants' combined capacity, be awarded in the auction. The states of Rio Grande do Norte, Ceará, and Rio Grande do Sul are the leading participants in the auction. In Rio Grande do Norte, 134 projects are responsible for 35.6% of the participants' combined capacity, while 118 projects in Ceará account for 20.6%, and 86 projects in Rio Grande do Sul make up 21.7% of that same overall generation capacity.

For more information, see October 13, 2009, article - First Wind-Only Energy Auction to Be Held in Brazil Next Month.

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