Brazil’s power regulator Aneel will hold a two-month consultation over rules governing the curtailment of wind power plants, a growing issue as the sector passes 15GW and meets 10% of national demand.
Aneel wants to draw up new regulations over how to manage and compensate for revenue loss when operator ONS cuts wind plants off from supplying power to Brazil's 145,000km grid for network management reasons.
Problems with curtailment have led to several wind power companies to request compensation from Aneel, which has to deal with the issues on a case by case basis because there are no set regulations.
Wind power in Brazil has grown in importance as a source of energy in Brazil, supplying around 10% of national demand and over 50% of supply needs in the northeastern region where 90% of the country’s power capacity is located.
In the coming 10 years the country is expected to reach over 23GW of total wind, or around 14% of projected national installed capacity.
This means that ONS will have to manage more and more wind plants – already adding up to over 500 around the country – balancing their power supply with large-hydro and thermal plants that account for 60% and 20% of Brazil's power supply, respectively.
Aneel wants to know how to measure the amount of power not sold to the grid. The public consultation will decide, among other things, whether this will be accounted for using wind measurements on turbine nacelles or though modelling.
