How smart tariffs, batteries, and regulation can transform consumers into active agents of the electrical system
EVENERGY monitors the most advanced solutions in the contemporary global electricity sector, and the current model combines a scenario of dynamic tariffs, intensive data usage, residential batteries, and grid integration transforming the consumer into an active participant in the system.
Rather than merely consuming energy, customers now contribute by shifting their consumption to more advantageous time slots and, additionally, through storage systems, selling electricity back to the grid during peak demand periods. This framework, which depends on technology, also requires an open market and regulation capable of remunerating flexibility and storage, a milestone Brazil is approaching in the context of DA – Distributed Storage.
Where This Model Already Works
In countries such as the United Kingdom, Germany, Spain, France, Italy, Japan, New Zealand, and the United States, more than 10 million customers currently manage their accounts and energy assets at scale, leveraging variable intraday pricing and monetizing through battery storage systems. In practice, the logic is straightforward: charge when energy is cheaper or more abundant, and export when the system is under stress and prices are higher. This combination of economic signaling and automation is what makes the consumer an active balancing agent of the grid.
In Germany, the highlight lies in the aggregation of residential batteries to form Virtual Power Plants (VPPs). Under this arrangement, thousands of distributed systems are operated as a single plant, offering flexibility and grid relief. This model is particularly relevant for countries with high renewable penetration, as it enables the transformation of dispersed assets into coordinated, commercially valued capacity.
What This Means for Brazil
In Brazil, the adoption of a similar model still depends on a decisive stage of regulatory maturation. The most realistic forecast is that ordinary consumers will have the legal and commercial conditions to store and resell energy with direct financial returns between 2027 and 2028. The central point is that, without market liberalization and without specific rules for distributed storage, batteries still function more as instruments of operational cost savings than as fully monetizable assets.
The Free Market Opening as a Prerequisite
Law 15,269, enacted in November 2025, established a timetable for the full liberalization of the free energy market. Commercial and industrial consumers supplied at low voltage are expected to be able to migrate to the free market by November 2027, while the opening for residential consumers is projected for November 2028. This shift is essential because it breaks the mandatory contracting logic with the local distribution utility and creates space for suppliers to offer smart tariffs, flexibility products, and remuneration models already practiced by companies in more advanced markets.
Storage: The Regulatory Step Yet to Mature
The second pillar is the regulation of battery storage. In April 2026, ANEEL authorized the first storage unit co-located with a generation plant in the country, associated with the Sol de Brotas 7 solar PV facility in the state of Bahia. The move was both symbolic and practical: it demonstrated that storage has definitively entered the Brazilian regulatory agenda. Simultaneously, the agency continues to discuss, through public consultations and technical notes, the rules for standalone systems, grid access, tariff application, and new business models. The decisive step toward bringing Brazil closer to the ideal model will be to advance distributed, behind-the-meter storage, allowing batteries at commercial facilities, condominiums, and, in the future, residences to provide services to the system and participate economically in this market.
What Is Already Achievable in the Short Term
Although the direct resale of stored energy is not yet fully open to the ordinary consumer, the Brazilian market has already begun testing elements of this future. EVENERGY partners have highlighted the use of intelligent platforms for the analysis and evaluation of flexibility models, batteries, and energy retail in the country. Furthermore, ANEEL and sector stakeholders have been fostering experimental environments and pilot projects focused on tariff innovation, distributed asset integration, and virtual power plants. In other words, the architecture of the new market is taking shape.
Peak Shaving and Real Savings for Commercial Consumers
In the commercial segment, particularly among large consumers, batteries already have a clear economic function. Peak shaving applications allow for the reduction of contracted demand or avoidance of higher-cost consumption during critical time intervals, thereby reducing exposure to elevated network charges. While this does not yet constitute, at scale, the same open resale logic seen in the United Kingdom, it already represents concrete monetization of energy flexibility. For companies involved in electric mobility, charging infrastructure, and related sectors, this is the most immediate field of application.
Conclusion
Brazil already presents the signals that this transformation has begun. In 2026, the focus lies on technological consolidation, strategic partnerships, and the advancement of storage regulation. In 2027, the market opening for small businesses should inaugurate the initial phase of more sophisticated energy offerings. In 2028, with the anticipated entry of residential consumers into the free market, the country may finally scale smart tariffs, integrated battery systems, and new flexibility remuneration mechanisms. If regulation evolves at the necessary pace, the Brazilian consumer will cease to be merely a bill payer and will begin to act as an economic agent within the electrical system.
Flavio Marqueti – Engineer and Executive Director, EVENERGY