Os LRCaps (capacity reserve auctions in the form of power) scheduled for March 18th and 20th will have competition. Certainty was shared by event participants in Brasília, this Tuesday (3), which debated the dispute. You auctions received registrations from 368 projects totaling 120,386 megawatts.
Edvaldo Santana, former director of Aneel (National Electric Energy Agency) and now executive director of Neal (Negócios de Energia Associados Ltda), calculates that the price now in March 2026 should be between 30% and 40% below the values practiced in the first auction, held in 2021.
“A qsupply quantity is large, the price should be low. It would be frustrating to contract too little power”, he declared regarding expectations regarding the volume of power to be contracted. The participants’ estimate is that the government will purchase between 17 gigawatts and 24 gigawatts of power.
The event was promoted through the digital platform MegaWhat.
Generator representatives expressed concern about the volume of power to be offered now and how much will be reserved for batteries in the next event, already confirmed but with no date yet set. The fear for generators is that this month’s auction will end up not being enough to meet their power needs.
“The system will benefit from different technologies, such as batteries. [Mas] no can reserve volume for technologies in the future. The technology has to be tested and approved. We have several ways to test. You don’t need to be an LRcap. There are other ways to introduce new technologies”, said Marcelo Lopes, executive director of Marketing, Commercialization and New Business at Eneva.
The concern is that the government will stop purchasing energy in this auction to opt for a new technology in the future, batteries – not yet tested in the Brazilian system – is also shared by André Gomes da Silva, vice-president of Regulation and Market at Copel.
Ministry of Mines and Energy
Christiany Salgado Faria, director at the Ministry of Mines and Energy, recalled that auctions are a reality, including batteries. “Studies indicate the needs. We structure the hiring. The MME’s job is to understand and attract these conversations”, explained the director of the Ministry.
For Christiano Vieira da Silva, Director of Operations at ONS (National System Operator), LRCap is an attempt to find a mix of resources to solve the system’s problem. The objective is to provide security with faster solutions, fewer restrictions and more efficiency.
Roberto Valer, CTO at Huawei Digital Power Brasil, represented the battery segment at the event. He believes that the future LRCap for the segment should have at least two gigawatts up for grabs. Valer highlighted that projects in this sector have a faster implementation, reducing the time between auction and entry into operation.
