1. Introduction Self-production of electric energy has occupied a strategic position in the Brazilian electricity sector since the 1990s. Initially consolidated by Law No. 9,074/1995 and Decree No. 2,003/1996, the model allowed large consumers—especially electro-intensive industries—to invest in their own generation capacity to meet their demand, assuming the risks of the enterprise in exchange for differentiated tariff and market conditions.

Over three decades, the model evolved: structures for self-production by equivalence emerged, involving consortia and Special Purpose Entities (SPEs); the Free Contracting Environment (ACL) expanded to new consumers; and the diversification of the renewable matrix opened new possibilities for solar, wind, and biomass self-production. The most recent scenario, marked by the rise of data centers and the pressure for clean and secure energy, has reinforced the model’s strategic relevance.

However, the publication of Law No. 15,269/2025—the most significant reform of the Brazilian electricity sector since 2004—has inaugurated a new chapter of regulatory uncertainty. The redefinition of the self-producer concept, new requirements for equivalence, and the ongoing discussion at ANEEL regarding plants with reduced capacity are putting structures that were previously consolidated in the market at risk. This article examines this panorama, focusing on regulatory changes, the current regulatory impasse, and the challenges for sector agents.

2. Concept and Normative Evolution of Self-Production 2.1 Original Legal Foundations Decree No. 2,003/1996, in regulating electricity production by Self-Producers (APE) and Independent Power Producers (PIE), established the classic definition of a self-producer as a natural or legal person—or companies in a consortium—holding a concession or authorization to produce electricity for their exclusive use. This definition already conditioned the classification on the existence of a state grant act, whether in the form of a concession, permission, or authorization.

For plants with a capacity exceeding 5 MW, obtaining a grant from ANEEL is mandatory, involving formal technical and administrative steps. Meanwhile, projects with a capacity of less than 5 MW—referred to as reduced-capacity generation plants—were exempted from concessions, permissions, or authorizations by Art. 8 of Law No. 9,074/1995, requiring only communication to the granting authority through simple registration.

2.2 Self-Production by Equivalence In 2007, Law No. 11,488 introduced the figure of self-production by equivalence, allowing consumers to participate in consortia or SPEs holding generation grants, provided that minimum requirements for contracted demand and equity participation were met. This mechanism significantly expanded the universe of beneficiaries of the regime, enabling commercial arrangements in which multiple consumers economically shared the same generation enterprise without necessarily holding individual control of the plant.

Over the years, self-production by equivalence has consolidated itself as one of the lowest-cost strategies for the energy supply of industrial consumers, being pointed out as a relevant competitive advantage for attracting infrastructure investments, including for data centers and high-energy-intensity plants.

2.3 Redefinition by Law No. 15,269/2025 Law No. 15,269, sanctioned on November 25, 2025—resulting from the conversion of Provisional Measure No. 1,304—promoted the most comprehensive reform of the Brazilian electricity sector in over two decades. Among its central pillars, in addition to the gradual opening of the free market to low-voltage consumers by 2028, the law structurally redefined the self-production regime.

The new Art. 16-B inserted into Law No. 9,074/1995 defines the self-producer as “the consumer holding a generation enterprise grant to produce energy on their own account and risk.” Three elements of this definition deserve special attention:

• The link to the consumer figure: Self-production presupposes a functional relationship between production and meeting one’s own demand, not configuring itself as abstract generation or a simple investment in an energy asset.

• The expression “on their own account and risk”: This segment excludes purely formal structures in which the consumer appears documentarily in a company without effectively assuming the economic, financial, corporate, or operational risks of the enterprise.

• The requirement of holding a grant: This is the most sensitive point for projects based on reduced-capacity generation plants, which are subject only to registration with ANEEL.

3. New Requirements for Self-Production by Equivalence Law No. 15,269/2025 also imposed significantly more rigorous criteria for classification as a self-producer by equivalence, highlighting two central requirements:

• Minimum aggregate contracted demand of 30,000 kW (30 MW), composed of consumption units with an individual demand equal to or greater than 3,000 kW (3 MW).

• Direct or indirect equity participation, with voting rights, in the company holding the generation grant—or a link through common corporate control, parent company, subsidiary, or affiliate.

These thresholds represent a substantial increase compared to the previous regime, restricting access to equivalence to agents with relevant minimum scale. The identification of the equity participation of the equivalent consumer must be kept updated with ANEEL, according to specific regulations.

The new rules came into full force at the end of February 2026, at the end of the three-month transition period established by the new § 5 of Art. 16-B. To ensure the acquired right to the previous regulations, agents had to register their contracts—whether a contract for the purchase and sale of equity participation or a purchase option contract, with notarized signatures or ICP-Brasil digital signatures—with the CCEE within this period, with the effective transfer of shares or quotas required within 36 months.

3.1 Acquired Rights and Transition Rules The law expressly preserved the acquired rights of certain agents, exempting them from the new demand and minimum participation limits until the expiration of their respective generation grants. Consumers are exempted from the new requirements if they:

• Were already equivalent to self-production with contracts submitted to the CCEE before the publication of the law (November 25, 2025);

• Belong to an economic group that holds 100% participation in the share capital of the entity holding the grant or registration for energy production; or

• Within three months of the law’s publication, submitted to the CCEE purchase and sale or share/quota option contracts, with notarized signatures.

4. The Regulatory Impasse at ANEEL: Decision Adjourned The practical application of the new rules for self-producers with reduced-capacity plants—those below 5 MW, exempted from formal grants and subject only to registration—has generated a complex regulatory impasse within ANEEL.

The central issue was brought to the collegial board in a public ordinary meeting held on June 16, 2026: should the CCEE continue to accept self-producer modeling requests for plants that only hold registration, without a formal concession, permission, or authorization grant? And what happens to the 295 reduced-capacity generation assets that were already registered under the self-production regime before Law No. 15,269/2025 came into force?

4.1 The Technical Position of ANEEL and CCEE Even before the collegial decision, ANEEL’s technical area had expressed its position on the subject through Joint Technical Note No. 14/2025-SGM-SCE-SFF/ANEEL, examining whether reduced-capacity generation plants could be classified as self-producers under the new legal definition, which requires holding a grant.

The Technical Note concluded that, historically, Decrees No. 2,003/1996 and No. 5,163/2004 already conceptualized the self-producer as the holder of a concession, permission, or authorization—instruments corresponding to classic forms of grants. Registrations of reduced-capacity generation plants, by their declaratory and simplified nature, were not included in this concept.

In the same vein, the CCEE, when responding to the ‘Energy Self-Production Clarification’ call opened on January 28, 2026, stated that plants operated through a Generation Plant Registration Declaration should not be qualified as self-producers, since registration is not equivalent to a concession, permission, or authorization grant.

4.2 The Tense Votes and Lack of Quorum In the meeting of June 16, 2026, Director Agnes Costa, the rapporteur of the process, presented a vote proposing that the CCEE reject self-producer modeling requests filed after the publication of Law No. 15,269/2025 by plants without a grant. However, recognizing the situation of agents already operating under the regime, the rapporteur proposed a differentiated transition period for the 295 already registered reduced-capacity assets: remaining in the regime for up to three years or for the remaining period equivalent to what would be applied to plants of the same source holding a formal grant—whichever is greater.

Director Willamy Frota presented a dissenting vote, advocating for a stricter cut: the maximum transition period would be only three years, according to the technical area’s proposal, without the proportional extension corresponding to the grant period of equivalent plants.

Director Gentil Nogueira supported the rapporteur’s vote. However, with only three directors present at the session, it was not possible to reach a majority for deliberation. The process was adjourned to the next public ordinary meeting of the collegial board.

5. Legal-Regulatory Analysis 5.1 The Question of Registration versus Grant The crux of the debate lies in the distinction between registration and grant in the regulatory law of the electricity sector. While a grant—concession, permission, or authorization—is a constitutive act by the public power that confers upon the private party the right to explore a certain energy potential in the name of the State, the registration of a reduced-capacity generation plant has a declaratory and simplified nature, intended to exempt small entrepreneurs from complex authorization processes.

The new definition in Art. 16-B of Law No. 9,074/1995, by requiring that the self-producer be the “holder of a generation enterprise grant,” created a direct incompatibility with classifying registered—but not authorized—plants in the category of self-producers.

However, this interpretation is nearsighted and overlooks the entire development of the Brazilian Electric System, notably through Laws No. 8,987/1995, No. 9,074/1995, and No. 9,427/1996, which denoted, at the time of their enactment, a partial transfer of the public service of energy from the public domain to the private sector, as part of the National Privatization Program (PND).

The prevention of the registration of these plants with the CCEE, coupled with the absence of a definitive decision from ANEEL, which has been pending for over 6 months, creates a regulatory vacuum that impacts investment planning, asset valuation, energy portfolio management in the ACL, and legal uncertainty for investors in the energy sector.

5.2 The Problem of Transition and Acquired Rights The divergence between the directors is not merely technical—it reflects a legitimate tension between two constitutional principles: on one hand, the legality and supremacy of the new law, which imposes objective criteria for classification as a self-producer; on the other hand, the protection of legitimate trust and investments made by agents who acted under an established regulatory regime and did not have any other enabling instrument than registration.

The proposal of rapporteur Agnes Costa seeks to balance these values through a differentiated transition regime, calibrated by the regulatory useful life of the assets. Director Frota’s proposal prioritizes the uniformity of the transition rule, setting the maximum term at three years regardless of the specifics of each asset.

Both approaches have a reasonable basis. The choice between them will directly impact the economic viability of 295 distributed generation assets, their respective holders, and the consumers who contracted energy from these sources under the self-production regime.

5.3 Implications for the Market Regulatory indefiniteness has immediate practical consequences:

• New self-production projects based on reduced-capacity plants (below 5 MW) are in a position of uncertainty regarding classification, which inhibits investment and hinders the structuring of long-term contracts.

• Agents already operating under the regime need to evaluate transition strategies: obtaining a formal grant for existing assets (where technically feasible), corporate restructuring, or migration to other contracting modalities in the ACL.

• Legal measures for assets in operation or those already in advanced stages, with a view to ensuring perfect legal acts and investments made in light of the SEB framework.

• Electro-intensive consumers and data centers, which have been structuring self-production projects based on small-scale assets, will need to revise their energy supply strategies.

6. Regulatory Perspectives The next public ordinary meeting of ANEEL’s collegial board should resume the topic with a sufficient quorum for deliberation. In this context, some scenarios emerge:

• Approval of the rapporteur’s proposal: A differentiated rule for the 295 already registered assets, with a transition period longer than three years for plants from sources with equivalent longer grants. In this hypothesis, existing agents would have predictability until the end of the term, but new entries of plants without grants into the self-production regime would be definitively barred.

• Approval of Director Frota’s proposal: A uniform three-year period for all agents in transition, regardless of the source or equivalent useful life, with greater alignment to the original technical proposal.

• Intermediate deliberation: Possible construction of a consensus between positions, with the establishment of objective criteria for identifying the remaining term applicable to each asset.

In parallel, the Public Consultation planned by ANEEL for the regulatory improvement of self-production—in compliance with the criteria of Law No. 15,269/2025—is expected to be opened throughout 2026, with a final decision expected for the second semester. This process represents a relevant opportunity for sector agents to present their positions and contribute to the construction of a regulatory framework that reconciles legal certainty, tariff affordability, and project viability. However, the delay in the procedures performed by ANEEL causes immense losses for consumers who depend on this type of asset, and perhaps the only remedy will be the judiciary.

“This article was developed with the help of artificial intelligence, with inputs and review by the author, which reflect their technical judgment of the issues addressed in this article.”