| Abstrakt: |
After more than three decades in a row, Brazil, the only equatorial country to adopt a DST policy, forsook it. The reduction delivered in electricity consumption, which was supposed to average out 4% per year, became ineffective and inefficient, because it focused mainly on lighting and residential consumers, rather than on cooling and the industrial sector. Moreover, the burden of reducing electricity consumption was only placed on the Southern regions of Brazil. The shutdown of this policy has raised questions about the country's commitment to its pledges on energy efficiency to the Paris Agreement. Based on data available from 2006 to 2017, this article compares the achievements of a command-and-control energy policy, such as DST, with those that would have arisen from an ETS (Energy Trading Scheme). The results show that, per year, society's net benefits might have been over 3 times greater: 12.58% rather than 4.1% for the reduction target of electricity consumption. Applying these targets to an ETS framework, net cost savings would be 104.09% rather than 33.64%, whereas mean electricity savings would make up 22.78% rather than 7.42%. Therefore, with ETS, mean electricity savings might turn out to be 5 times greater if compared with 4.1% savings reported yearly by DST. Furthermore, the Northern regions, which have historically been left out of DST policies, could have additionally earned up to € 16.8 billion per year from reducing their electricity consumption jointly with their Southern counterparties. • Brazil's DST policy rendered negligible electricity savings over more than 30 years. • Permit trading could deliver cost and energy savings 3 and 5 times greater. • With permit trading, non-DST regions profit from larger electricity savings. • Brazil's pledges on energy savings to the Paris Agreement might be doubled. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |
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