OREANDA-NEWS. Brazil's electricity sector monitoring committee (CMSE) will maintain the dispatch of thermoelectric plants throughout September.

The CMSE now sees zero risk of power rationing for the remainder of the year for both the southeast/center-west subsystem and the northeast subsystem.

The committee's calculation assumes that all thermoelectric plants with operational costs below R600/MWh ($158.73/MWh) will remain on stream for the rest of 2015.

In mid-August, mines and energy minister Eduardo Braga indicated that more thermoelectric plants could be taken off line in the final quarter of the year, but added that this decision would depend on the addition of new generation capacity.

Because of delays in the installation of transmission lines, the government recently said only 364MW of the planned 1,820MW of capacity from the Teles Pires hydroelectric plant in Para state would be added to the system in November.

Delays also persist at both the 3,150MW Santo Antonio and the 3,750MW Jirau hydroelectric plants on the Madeira river in Rondonia state, both of which are scheduled to bring on additional turbines later this year.

These delays have fueled doubts that the government will reduce thermoelectric output in October as it had indicated earlier.

Reservoir levels in the southeast/center-west subsystem declined 3.1 percentage points in August to 34.3pc of their capacity. One year earlier, reservoirs in the strategic region stood at 30.3pc of their capacity.

In addition to the slightly higher reservoir levels, 259MW of new generating capacity was added to the system in August, according to the CMSE.

The fresh capacity comes from two new units of Odebrecht Energia's Eldorado sugar cane biomass plant with a total of 116MW; 40.7MW from the Sao Joao biogas plant; and 20MW from the wood chip-powered Florapac plant. Three wind farms added another 81.8MW of capacity last month.

Declining power consumption, reflecting an economic recession, has also contributed to reducing the risk of rationing. According to preliminary estimates by the electricity clearinghouse (CCEE), overall consumption was down by 1.1pc in August compared to August 2014.

With lower consumption, power generation was also down by 1.2pc in August compared to the same month of 2014.

In August, natural gas-fired generation, mostly using imported LNG, decreased by 15.4pc to an average of 6,702MW, compared to an average of 7,921MW in August 2014.

Generation from costly fuel-oil plants shrank by 55pc in August to an average of 1,309MW compared to an average of 2,915MW in August 2014.

On 8 August, the CMSE took 21 high-cost thermoelectric plants off stream, cutting average thermoelectric output by 2,000MW.

The CMSE has been able to avoid power rationing in the northeastern Brazil largely because of increased wind generation.

Reservoirs in the region reached 18.4pc of their installed capacity on 31 August, down 4.1 percentage points from 31 July, and significantly below their 31 August 2014 level of 27.2pc.

The national systems operator (ONS) is projecting that precipitation in the northeast region in September will reach a mere 50pc of its historical average.

Brazil will have 9GW of installed wind capacity by the end of 2015, according to the mines and energy ministry. As of July 31, Brazil had 6.4GW of installed wind capacity.