Brasilia – The director general of the National Electric Energy Agency (Aneel), Romeu Rufino, said on Tuesday that the decision on a possible new aid to distributors to cover expenses in the short-term energy market will not be made until January.

On Monday, a government source had already told Reuters that a decision on possible aid would be made towards the end of this year.

According to Rufino, it should be noted that starting in January, distributors will begin collecting additional monthly resources from consumers related to higher energy costs, through the system known as Bandeiras Tarifárias.

These flags indicate to consumers whether energy will be more or less expensive in the coming month, with the red flag being the most expensive indication of energy. In practice, tariff flags anticipate the transfer to tariffs of the increase in the cost of energy related to the conditions of electricity generation, something that previously only occurred on the date of the annual adjustment of each company. This relieves the cash flow of companies, which currently have to “load” these expenses for months, until the date of the adjustment.

According to Rufino, in a full month with the red flag in all markets, the maximum collection in the country with the flag system is expected to reach around 800 million reais. “This will undoubtedly help mitigate (the distributors’ expenses),” he said.

The director general of Aneel confirmed that the resources from the 6.6 billion reais loan obtained by distributors in August will end in this week's settlement of the short-term market, corresponding to the operations of October.

According to him, the Brazilian Association of Electric Energy Distributors (Abradee) has already submitted a request to Aneel for exceptional treatment to help cover short-term market expenses in November and December operations. “We are analyzing whether it is necessary and what the measure would be,” he said.