IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/enepol/v97y2016icp145-154.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Context analysis for a new regulatory model for electric utilities in Brazil

Author

Listed:
  • El Hage, Fabio S.
  • Rufín, Carlos

Abstract

This article examines what would have to change in the Brazilian regulatory framework in order to make utilities profit from energy efficiency and the integration of resources, instead of doing so from traditional consumption growth, as it happens at present. We argue that the Brazilian integrated electric sector resembles a common-pool resources problem, and as such it should incorporate, in addition to the centralized operation for power dispatch already in place, demand side management, behavioral strategies, and smart grids, attained through a new business and regulatory model for utilities. The paper proposes several measures to attain a more sustainable and productive electricity distribution industry: decoupling revenues from volumetric sales through a fixed maximum load fee, which would completely offset current disincentives for energy efficiency; the creation of a market for negawatts (saved megawatts) using the current Brazilian mechanism of public auctions for the acquisition of wholesale energy; and the integration of technologies, especially through the growth of unregulated products and services. Through these measures, we believe that Brazil could improve both energy security and overall sustainability of its power sector in the long run.

Suggested Citation

  • El Hage, Fabio S. & Rufín, Carlos, 2016. "Context analysis for a new regulatory model for electric utilities in Brazil," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 97(C), pages 145-154.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:enepol:v:97:y:2016:i:c:p:145-154
    DOI: 10.1016/j.enpol.2016.07.014
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421516303676
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.enpol.2016.07.014?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Littlechild, Stephen, 2014. "RPI-X, competition as a rivalrous discovery process, and customer engagement – Paper presented at the Conference The British Utility Regulation Model: Beyond Competition and Incentive Regulation?," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 31(C), pages 152-161.
    2. Michael G. Pollitt & Irina Shaorshadze, 2013. "The role of behavioural economics in energy and climate policy," Chapters, in: Roger Fouquet (ed.), Handbook on Energy and Climate Change, chapter 24, pages 523-546, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    3. Depuru, Soma Shekara Sreenadh Reddy & Wang, Lingfeng & Devabhaktuni, Vijay, 2011. "Electricity theft: Overview, issues, prevention and a smart meter based approach to control theft," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(2), pages 1007-1015, February.
    4. Cossent, Rafael & Gómez, Tomás & Frías, Pablo, 2009. "Towards a future with large penetration of distributed generation: Is the current regulation of electricity distribution ready? Regulatory recommendations under a European perspective," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 37(3), pages 1145-1155, March.
    5. Hirst, Eric & Blank, Eric & Moskovitz, David, 1994. "Alternative ways to decouple electric utility revenues from sales," The Electricity Journal, Elsevier, vol. 7(6), pages 54-66.
    6. Schuelke-Leech, Beth-Anne & Barry, Betsy & Muratori, Matteo & Yurkovich, B.J., 2015. "Big Data issues and opportunities for electric utilities," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 937-947.
    7. Katrina Jessoe & David Rapson, 2014. "Knowledge Is (Less) Power: Experimental Evidence from Residential Energy Use," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(4), pages 1417-1438, April.
    8. Sioshansi, Fereidoon P., 2006. "Electricity market reform: What has the experience taught us thus far?," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 14(2), pages 63-75, June.
    9. W. Kip Viscusi & Joseph E. Harrington & John M. Vernon, 2005. "Economics of Regulation and Antitrust, 4th Edition," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 4, volume 1, number 026222075x, April.
    10. Smith, Thomas B., 2004. "Electricity theft: a comparative analysis," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 32(18), pages 2067-2076, December.
    11. Herring, Horace, 2006. "Energy efficiency—a critical view," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 31(1), pages 10-20.
    12. Linares, P. & Santos, F.J. & Pérez-Arriaga, I.J., 2008. "Scenarios for the evolution of the Spanish electricity sector: Is it on the right path towards sustainability?," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 36(11), pages 4057-4068, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Brandão, Roberto & Tolmasquim, Maurício T. & Maestrini, Marcelo & Tavares, Arthur Felipe & Castro, Nivalde J. & Ozorio, Luiz & Chaves, Ana Carolina, 2021. "Determinants of the economic performance of Brazilian electricity distributors," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 68(C).
    2. Scalzer, Rodrigo S. & Rodrigues, Adriano & Macedo, Marcelo Álvaro da S. & Wanke, Peter, 2019. "Financial distress in electricity distributors from the perspective of Brazilian regulation," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 125(C), pages 250-259.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Rains, Emily & Abraham, Ronald J., 2018. "Rethinking barriers to electrification: Does government collection failure stunt public service provision?," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 114(C), pages 288-300.
    2. Jamil, Faisal, 2013. "On the electricity shortage, price and electricity theft nexus," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 267-272.
    3. Daniel Leite & José Pessanha & Paulo Simões & Rodrigo Calili & Reinaldo Souza, 2020. "A Stochastic Frontier Model for Definition of Non-Technical Loss Targets," Energies, MDPI, vol. 13(12), pages 1-20, June.
    4. Stracqualursi, Erika & Rosato, Antonello & Di Lorenzo, Gianfranco & Panella, Massimo & Araneo, Rodolfo, 2023. "Systematic review of energy theft practices and autonomous detection through artificial intelligence methods," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 184(C).
    5. Duncan Chaplin & Delia Welsh & Arif Mamun & Nick Ingwersen & Kristine Bos & Erin Crossett & Poonam Ravindranath & Dara Bernstein & William Derbyshire, "undated". "Ghana Power Compact: Evaluation Design Report," Mathematica Policy Research Reports 8c1896c6f9af45f08347287c1, Mathematica Policy Research.
    6. Hugo Brise o & Omar Rojas, 2020. "Factors Associated with Electricity Losses: A Panel Data Perspective," International Journal of Energy Economics and Policy, Econjournals, vol. 10(5), pages 281-286.
    7. Yurtseven, Çağlar, 2015. "The causes of electricity theft: An econometric analysis of the case of Turkey," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 70-78.
    8. Yakubu, Osman & Babu C., Narendra & Adjei, Osei, 2018. "Electricity theft: Analysis of the underlying contributory factors in Ghana," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 123(C), pages 611-618.
    9. Ahmad, Tanveer, 2017. "Non-technical loss analysis and prevention using smart meters," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 573-589.
    10. Wabukala, Benard M. & Mukisa, Nicholas & Watundu, Susan & Bergland, Olvar & Rudaheranwa, Nichodemus & Adaramola, Muyiwa S., 2023. "Impact of household electricity theft and unaffordability on electricity security: A case of Uganda," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 173(C).
    11. Hugo Brise o & Omar Rojas, 2020. "Factors Associated with Electricity Theft in Mexico," International Journal of Energy Economics and Policy, Econjournals, vol. 10(3), pages 250-254.
    12. Rehan Akram & Nasir Ayub & Imran Khan & Fahad R. Albogamy & Gul Rukh & Sheraz Khan & Muhammad Shiraz & Kashif Rizwan, 2021. "Towards Big Data Electricity Theft Detection Based on Improved RUSBoost Classifiers in Smart Grid," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(23), pages 1-17, December.
    13. Pless, Jacquelyn & Fell, Harrison, 2017. "Bribes, bureaucracies, and blackouts: Towards understanding how corruption at the firm level impacts electricity reliability," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 36-55.
    14. Fernando de Souza Savian & Julio Cezar Mairesse Siluk & Tai s Bisognin Garlet & Felipe Moraes do Nascimento & Jose Renes Pinheiro & Zita Vale, 2022. "Non-technical Losses in Brazil: Overview, Challenges, and Directions for Identification and Mitigation," International Journal of Energy Economics and Policy, Econjournals, vol. 12(3), pages 93-107, May.
    15. Costa-Campi, Maria Teresa & Daví-Arderius, Daniel & Trujillo-Baute, Elisa, 2018. "The economic impact of electricity losses," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 75(C), pages 309-322.
    16. Never, Babette, 2015. "Social norms, trust and control of power theft in Uganda: Does bulk metering work for MSEs?," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 82(C), pages 197-206.
    17. Furszyfer Del Rio, Dylan D. & Sovacool, Benjamin K., 2023. "Of cooks, crooks and slum-dwellers: Exploring the lived experience of energy and mobility poverty in Mexico's informal settlements," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 161(C).
    18. Morell-Dameto, Nicolás & Chaves-Ávila, José Pablo & Gómez San Román, Tomás & Schittekatte, Tim, 2023. "Forward-looking dynamic network charges for real-world electricity systems: A Slovenian case study," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 125(C).
    19. Viegas, Joaquim L. & Esteves, Paulo R. & Melício, R. & Mendes, V.M.F. & Vieira, Susana M., 2017. "Solutions for detection of non-technical losses in the electricity grid: A review," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 80(C), pages 1256-1268.
    20. Bhatt, Brijesh & Singh, Anoop, 2020. "Stakeholders’ role in distribution loss reduction technology adoption in the Indian electricity sector: An actor-oriented approach," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 137(C).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:enepol:v:97:y:2016:i:c:p:145-154. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/enpol .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.