Over 600 attendees met in Sao Paulo and reviewed strategies for revenue enhancement and energy management in the region.
Brazil’s energy market remains a key market both within the region and globally, and its rapid growth over the past few years is expected to continue into the foreseeable future. Metering, billing and the customer relationship will be crucial in managing this growth to ensure utility and market sustainability.
“There have been many changes over the past few years and now there is a new way of doing things,” said energy consultant Cyro Boccuzzi, formerly technical services vice-president at AES Eletropaulo, introducing the opening panel discussion at the 5th Metering, Billing/CRM Latin America.
Commenting on recent developments in the Latin American region Boccuzzi said that three issues in particular needed to be considered: The challenges of “modernity” in utilities, such as how should utilities modernize and should this process be accelerated; integration within utilities and what it brings for their activities, for example in areas such as cost and loss reductions, and how can customers be included; and metering for the efficient use of energy, which is now becoming an issue of concern.
“Aneel and Inmetro should be catalyzers for the industry,” said Luiz Arruda, assistant to the director of CEMIG, adding that there is a need for “flexibility” in order to encourage utilities to invest in technology and thereby become more efficient.
Other panelists commented on the role of electronic meters and the need to replace the older electromechanical meters.
“Electronic meters would give us closer control of the energy,” said Jose Henrique Bertoni, technical services director at AES Eletropaulo.
“But,” noted Boccuzzi, “meters are still high cost items and we need cheaper meters.” |
