By Celso Chagas and Esther Obriem
The long-awaited regulation for offshore wind power – and its developments – were points that Marcelo Lopes, director of Hydraulics and Offshore Renewables at Neoenergia, emphasized during his participation in the first day of South America Offshore Wind, held by Quest Offshore at the Sheraton Hotel from September 17 to 19.
“Today we are still approving the offshore wind power law, but later we need to develop more legislation, for auctions, for example, in addition to financial and non-financial criteria for offshore wind. We want to attract the entire supply chain necessary for the segment to become a reality,” he stated.
But what will be the targets or objectives when we obtain the seabeds to continue, the criteria for defining the correct sizes of these areas?” he asked. Lopes emphasized that he is not talking about a market route, reserve energy or PPAs, as this is still a very early stage. “This is related to planning. We have to plan offshore wind in Brazil, have a clear vision, how to structure the planning based on the government and expectations,” he continued.
According to the executive, it is necessary to know which regions of Brazil will be developed to receive the new energy source. “Let’s forget for a second about what we need to sell and think about incentives and how the project can be competitive. When we define a region, we need to look at the business plan. What we don’t know is the price of energy, so we don’t know if we will have excessive costs now. This is the moment when we will try to make the right decisions to sell energy correctly,” he pointed out.
For Lopes, in Brazil, it is necessary to focus on building a framework that will enable auctions to be held in a way that makes the events attractive to interested parties. “We will not overload prices. We will learn, attract industry and suppliers. With the first projects being studied, we will have good signs, feedback for the government to plan transmission lines. Then, we will see which contract model will be competitive in the long term. What we need to do is have a price criterion and be competitive,” he said.
Finally, the director of Neoenergia also said he is aware that Ibama, for example, is investing in the knowledge of its employees for the offshore wind segment. “What we have to do with other government agencies is to try to be more objective in relation to the criteria so that they feel more comfortable in making licensing decisions,” he concluded.
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