At the start of 2025, subjects such as the opening of the free market, the advancement of energy storage, tariff modernisation and the long-awaited Capacity Reserve Auction (Leilão de Reserva de Capacidade – LRCAP) occupied the centre of sectoral expectations. Looking back now, it is possible to identify which of those expectations were confirmed, which gained even greater relevance and which ultimately fell away for the next regulatory cycle.
The year was an intense one: two structuring Provisional Measures, the regulation of energy storage, the reorganisation of capacity contracting auctions, debates on climate resilience, and both advances and impasses related to the opening of the free market. Below, we set out the themes that effectively dominated the legal and regulatory agenda of 2025.
The close of the first half was marked by the issuance of Provisional Measure No. 1,300/2025, published in May, whose original text contained both social provisions and structural proposals aimed at reforming the electricity sector. However, as the legislative process unfolded, it became clear that many of the most sensitive points, those concerning the free market opening, the restructuring of charges and the revision of planning arrangements, faced strong resistance from sectoral agents and from part of the National Congress. As a legislative strategy, these elements were transferred to Provisional Measure No. 1,304/2025, issued a few weeks later, enabling MP No. 1,300/2025 to concentrate on the measures considered urgent by the government and to secure approval.
The text approved on the final day of its validity (17 September 2025) and converted into Law No. 15,235/2025 established full exemption for low-income consumers registered in the Single Registry (CadÚnico) with monthly consumption of up to 80 kWh, and provided that, from January 2026, families with a per capita income of between one-half and one minimum wage and consumption of up to 120 kWh would cease to pay the Energy Development Account (Conta de Desenvolvimento Energético – CDE). The fiscal impact of these measures is significant: the CDE represents approximately 15% of the electricity bill. Thus, whilst it provided immediate relief to millions of households, the new rule projected medium-term distributive effects, redistributing costs among the remaining consumers.
Provisional Measure No. 1,304/2025, issued in sequence and enacted in November as Law No. 15,269/2025, assumed the dominant regulatory role of the year. It brought together the provisions that had been removed from MP No. 1,300/2025 and consolidated a broad sectoral reform with an impact across virtually every segment of the electricity supply chain. One of its most important pillars was the creation of the first specific legal framework for energy storage, conferring upon ANEEL express competence to regulate and supervise battery systems whether operated on an autonomous basis or linked to generation, transmission, distribution or trading authorisations.
It also opened the way for fiscal incentives and for the incorporation of such systems into expansion plans and capacity reserve mechanisms. Notwithstanding these advances, essential aspects, including participation criteria for auctions, minimum technical requirements, operational responsibilities and the definitive regulatory classification of the Autonomous Electrical Energy Storage System (Sistema de Armazenamento de Energia Autônomo – SAE Autônomo), remained contingent on future regulation, leaving significant lacunae at the end of 2025. This uncertainty also affected hybrid projects and ancillary service providers, which are still awaiting clear rules to underpin their investment decisions.
Alongside the debates on storage, 2025 was also marked by the expectation of the long-awaited full opening of the free market. MP No. 1,300/2025 went so far as to include provisions on the subject, prompting the opening of Public Consultation No. 196/2025 by the Ministry of Mines and Energy (MME), which sought to regulate account portability, the migration of consumers served at voltages below 2.3 kV, and the rules applicable to the Supplier of Last Resort (SUI). However, as noted above, when converted into law, those provisions did not survive into the final text.
Law No. 15,269/2025 (arising from MP No. 1,304/2025), however, established an effective timetable for the free market opening: industrial and commercial consumers will be entitled to migrate within 24 months, whilst residential and other consumer classes will be able to migrate within 36 months of the publication of the law, provided that certain prerequisites, such as the development and execution of a consumer awareness and communication plan regarding the option to migrate to the free environment, are fulfilled.
As a result, households, small businesses, rural producers and low-voltage units will be guaranteed the right to choose their own energy supplier, bringing the Brazilian electricity sector closer to competitive models already established internationally. The law also confers regulatory powers on ANEEL to govern the conditions of access, migration and supply; institutes the SUI as a consumer protection mechanism; and reaffirms the need for accounting separation between the regulated and free environments, thus avoiding cross-subsidies. Progress, however, is contingent on intensive regulatory output in 2026, particularly in relation to the design of the SUI, the portability rules and the mitigation of risks for vulnerable consumers.
In the field of auctions, the first half of the year was dominated by expectations surrounding the LRCAP that had been scheduled for June. Normative Directive No. 97/2024 of the MME had established guidelines for capacity contracting through thermal and hydroelectric plants and, for the first time, through storage systems. However, the auction ultimately did not take place. In the second half of the year, the MME reorganised the planning framework and published new guidelines and parameters for the 2026 auctions, envisaging two distinct events: one focused on capacity contracting through thermal and hydroelectric plants, and another exclusively dedicated to battery energy storage systems (BESS), whose tender documents began to be discussed in a public consultation and whose holding was scheduled for April 2026. This development confirms the central position that energy storage has acquired in energy planning instruments.
The year closes with the approval of ANEEL's new Regulatory Agenda, which set out 59 priority activities for the 2026–2027 biennium, alongside Regulatory Performance Assessments and a series of exploratory activities. The agenda directly reflects the changes introduced by Law No. 15,269/2025, including the need to revise trading rules, to establish the definitive storage framework, to adapt tariff rules, to refine financial guarantees, to advance the market opening and to deepen the climate resilience agenda. The execution timetable involves dozens of public participation processes and underscores the scale of the regulatory challenge now under way. Also notable is the inclusion of measures directed at digitalisation, cybersecurity and service quality improvement, themes that gained priority given the growing complexity of the grid.
Thus, 2025 was not merely a year of regulatory transition; it redefined the institutional foundations upon which the electricity sector will operate in the years to come. The combination of dense legal reforms, the reordering of sectoral planning, the consolidation of the free market opening debate, the definitive incorporation of energy storage and the strengthening of the climate resilience agenda made it a year in which energy policy advanced considerably, whilst simultaneously revealing structural tensions that remain unresolved.
The approval of the 2026–2027 Regulatory Agenda confirms this assessment: the coming biennium will be devoted less to announcing major new directions and more to the arduous task of regulating, integrating and operationalising what was decided in 2025. The sector enters 2026 with a defined normative direction, but facing challenges that will require sustained institutional coordination, precise regulatory choices and the capacity to adapt to a rapidly evolving technological and climatic environment.