The Public Energy Efficiency Policies Mapped and Implemented for the Industrial Motor Reconditioning Sector in Brazil

In 2001, Law 10,295 established the process to make mandatory the minimum energy performance standards (MEPS) in equipment that consumes a lot of energy. About 25% of Brazil’s electric energy is consumed by loads connected to industrial electric motors (IEM), making them the main targets of public policies of energy efficiency. Led by this law, decrees and ordinances were created for IEM, which raised the minimum nominal efficiency level of these motors from low efficiency class IR1 to those of class IR3, that took effect in 2019. IR1, IR2 and IR3 are Brazilian efficiency classes which have the same values for nominal efficiencies of IE1, IE2 and IE3, except for 7 cases in which smaller efficiencies are allowed for motors built in smaller frames. After regulating the market of new motors, it was necessary to understand the market of repaired/reconditioning motors (RM). In 2013, a study (Souza RC, Dantas BF, Reis D, Sant’Anna H, Calili RF, Fagundes WDC, Final report – market research on refurbished engines, a proposal for the regulatory agency. PUC-Rio, Rio de Janeiro, 2013) was accomplished to analyze it. At that time, a large resale market of RM was identified, in which these motors are less efficient and with a major impact on the country’s energy consumption. The number of motors repaired is much larger than the number of new motors. Also, the RM sector is unstructured, maintenance companies do not have a representative association with the government, do not have defined technical standards and, generally, the employees do not receive adequate training in how to maintain the motors. This work has been used by the Ministry of Mines and Energy to create two major measures: the formation of a working group and the inclusion of RM in the Interministerial Ordinance Joint of 2017, which established the efficiency class IR3 as MEPS. This working group has been promoting the energy efficiency in RM with actions implemented in six areas: sector identification including a new market study (Souza RC, Calili RF, Vieira RS, Teixeira RSD, Market research on refurbished engines, a proposal for the regulator, technical report for international cooper association. PUC-Rio, Rio de Janeiro, 2019), qualification / training, consumer awareness, standardization, representativeness creation and energy regulation. This chapter shows the implemented public policy, their results, earnings and barriers.