Brazil's power agency Aneel is seeking to reduce the gap between daytime solar power supply and peak evening demand through more use of time-based pricing mechanisms.
Growing solar generation creates a challenge for Brazil's grid as it seeks to better match supply and demand, advisor to Aneel's general director Flavia Lis Pederneiras said at the Smart Grid conference in Sao Paulo on Tuesday.
Solar power generation during the day and higher electricity demand at night boosts system prices and require systems with more flexibility to make the national power system more stable, she said.
Aneel wants to increase time-based electricity tariffs, which allows low-voltage consumers including residential, rural, industrial and public service consumers to pay different prices depending on the time of day they use electricity. It gives consumers clearer price signals and encourages them to shift consumption to periods of higher solar power generation, it said.
Electric vehicles (EVs) could stress the grid if most charging happens during evening peak hours, but they could also become a part of the solution if charging happens during higher solar power generation hours, from 10am-4pm, Perderneiras said.
Brazilian consumers bought 62,365 EVs in August, breaking the previous all-time monthly EV sales record for a sixth consecutive month. EV sales slightly more than doubled from the same period last year and were up by 1pc from July.
Time-based electricity tariffs can help narrow the gap between solar power supply and demand, but they are not the sole solution. Aneel is looking at several measures to improve Brazil's power system flexibility, including curtailmentand the latest power capacity reserve auction, Perderneiras added.
Brazil expanded its power generation by 1.97GW in August, with solar accounting for nearly half of the new capacity additions, according to Aneel.
