Smart grid and the challenges of the application of an hourly rate for residential consumer in Brazil

The smart metering and the application of energy hourly rates will be one of the more visible ways to include the consumer into smart grid concept. The residential consumers can be considered the most responsible for the costs of system expansion and do not have alternatives of tariff that induce it at a better use of energy. This way, the white hourly rate, which was created aiming the promotion of the energy management by the consumer will be an alternative to conventional rate that is currently applied. In this context, this paper proposes an initial analysis of the impacts of the application of the hourly rate to the residential consumers considering two different scenarios: one of them in which the consumption habits do not change due to the hourly rate and another in which it is considered a possible modulation of the consumption during the peak hours of the system.