Brazil’s Bolsonaro defies regulator to spare solar from grid tax

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has personally intervened to block a proposed tax for net-metered solar installations, the latest PV endorsement of Brazil’s otherwise environmentally controversial president.

The former army captain found the time this month to wade into a row pitting Brazil’s solar circles against energy regulator Aneel, over the latter’s proposal to charge grid access fees to PV plants backed under the country’s net-metering scheme.

In a flurry of social media posts over the past few days, Bolsonaro announced he had approached Brazilian Senate president David Alcolumbre and his counterpart at the Chamber of Deputies Rodrigo Maia to ensure solar is spared from Aneel’s fee.

According to Bolsonaro, urgent bills will be put forward in either legislative chamber to “forbid” the taxation of solar energy. Pressed on the subject by Facebook users, the president said: “Just talked to [Maia] and [Alcolumbre]. Forget Aneel, we 3 decided: the tax will be ZERO.”

Speaking to journalists on Monday, in a video streamed via the president’s social media account, Bolsonaro said he had acted to “bury” the possibility of solar taxes. “The decision is mine … no one else talks about it,” he said. “Our position is zero taxes.”

The president’s own words later in the same speech hinted that talks with Aneel were not fully closed, however. “[Energy minister] Bento [Albuquerque] told me Aneel wants to talk to me,” he said. “I said that if this is for him to say that the tariff is zero, I’m ready to receive it.”

The regulator, Bolsonaro continued, could itself have a change of heart. “Maybe Aneel itself realises this source of energy has to be stimulated by the government and not for lobbying groups in power transmission to work within Aneel to tax,” he remarked.

Aneel’s proposed fee – part of a broader and controversial (see below) overhaul of Brazil’s distributed generation regime – would charge small-scale solar consumers for grid access, which is currently free-of-charge unless independent producers use more energy than they generate.

The feature examining the opportunities and risks of Brazilian and Mexican PV was part of PV Tech Power's Volume 20, which you can subscribe to here.

The prospects and challenges of Latin American solar and storage will take centre stage at Solar Media's Energy Storage Latin America, to be held in Colombia on 28-29 April 2020.

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