In June, the International Energy Initiative – IEI Brazil, launched a portal with the objective to gather data, indicators, and analyses of energy efficiency, with free public access. The purpose is to provide transparency to information about energy efficiency in Brazil and to monitor the performance, the progress and the initiatives from the area in Brazil. The launch event of the Energy Efficiency Portal was held at the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering (FEM), of Unicamp, in Campinas, in the state of São Paulo.

The Energy Efficiency Portal was created from a project conducted by IEI Brazil, which began in June 2018, financed by the Institute for Climate and Society (iCS) and supported by Procobre – the Brazilian Copper Institute. In the first year of the project, data was collected from the Program of Energy Efficiency (PEE), of the National Agency of Electric Energy (ANEEL), developed by the electric energy utility and distribution companies. This data refers to projects that were concluded and subsequently approved officially by ANEEL, for the period from 2008 to 2013. The data was obtained via the Access to Information Law.

The portal aims to be an observatory of energy efficiency in Brazil, allowing, for example, consumers to monitor the results of the projects of the utility companies.

“This was public data that was not available,” according to the researcher from IEI Brazil, Rodolfo Dourado Maia Gomes. The primary data collected from the PEE, as well as the indicators and the analyses obtained from this data, compose the first of the modules of the Energy Efficiency Portal. “In this module, the consumer can, for example, evaluate, in the portal, the performance of energy efficiency programs carried out by the utility companies in his region, and try to understand the relationship that exists between them and the electricity tariff,” explains Gilberto Jannuzzi, director of IEI Brazil.

The interface of portal was conceived to be navigated simply and intuitively, thereby guaranteeing ease of viewing of the results and free public access. The user can select the data and combine categories producing graphs and tables. The data can be downloaded to a computer or another device. In addition to the analyses, the user also has access to news and studies about energy efficiency.

One of the objectives of the portal is to demonstrate the need to measure energy efficiency, which is often considered “invisible” by consumers, because it involves energy that has not been consumed. The portal is therefore designed for all consumers, because they are the ones who are financing these programs via their electricity bills. It will also be an important database for public agents, Energy Conservation Service Companies (ESCOS), government experts, and researchers.

Other modules are being designed and should form part of the portal in the future. In the second stage of the portal, new data will be produced that will enable the evaluation of other indicators, such as the number of jobs generated in the energy efficiency sector.

“The future analyses should also involve the Brazilian Labeling Program, the minimum standards of energy efficiency of equipment, and the comparison of the performance with other countries,” explains the IEI Brazil researcher, Rodolfo Dourado Maia Gomes.

The technical management of the portal is performed in conjunction with Mitsidi Projetos.

“We started from the basis that the public policies related to energy efficiency should be transparent and traceable, for better use of the existing legislative instruments, and an increase in the public benefits of the programs,” said Hamilton Ortiz, a partner and consultant from Mitsidi.

The data collection (which will be available on the portal) was performed through a partnership between IEI Brazil and three other institutions traditionally involved in studies of energy efficiency: the Center of Excellence in Energy Efficiency (Excen), at UNIFEI, the Interdisciplinary Center of Energy Planning (Nipe), at Unicamp, and the Laboratory of Energy Efficiency in Buildings (LabEEE), at UFSC.

At the launch event, the features of the Energy Efficiency Portal were presented, as well as a step-by-step report of its creation. A debate will also be held about the importance of the evaluation mechanisms of energy efficiency in Brazil, with the presence of institutions such as the Ministry of Mines and Energy (MME), the Energy Research Company (EPE), the Consumer Defense Institute (IDEC), and the National Program for Conservation of Electric Energy (Procel), among others.