Aneel (National Electric Energy Agency) approved this Tuesday (9) the opening of a public consultation with the budget proposal of R$52.7 billion for the CDE (Energy Development Account), the main levy charged on the electricity bill, in 2026.
The CDE is a kind of “super fund” for the electricity sector created after the national blackout of 2001. It is financed by all private consumers in the country and aims to promote energy development and protection. Within the CDE there are other tariffs, such as social tariffs, subsidies for those who use renewable energy sources and fees paid for the maintenance of Aneel and the ONS.
CDE spending is expected to increase 7% from 2025 as subsidies increase, primarily those awarded to large wind, solar and biomass projects, which benefit from rate reductions on the use of transmission and distribution systems, and to small distributed solar systems.
Of the total 2026 budget, 47.8 billion reais will be borne by energy consumers through a charge on the electricity bill. The public consultation on the subject, which begins this Wednesday (10), remains open until January 26, with the final budget to be deliberated by Aneel by the end of February.
As for the tariff impact resulting from the increase in the CDE, Aneel estimates different effects between regions, taking into account the application of the new electricity sector law which, among other points, changed the distribution of general CDE costs for different voltage levels and eliminated regional differences in payments.
The assessment is that CDE tariff costs for captive market consumers in the South, South East and West Central regions could fall by 0.8% in 2026, but increase by 0.7% in the North and North East.
CDE values have grown exponentially in recent years, following the provision of a series of subsidies in the electricity sector. The budget, which in 2020 was less than R$22 billion, increased to R$37 billion in 2024 and to R$49.3 billion this year. To stop this increase, the government managed to pass a law which imposes a spending ceiling for the CDE from 2027.
A 2.6 billion reais increase in social tariff spending also weighed on the CDE budget in 2026, following a federal government measure that increased free electricity bills for the low-income population.
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