State energy secretaries have requested that President Lula include natural gas in the Redata program, aiming to ensure regional parity and energy security.
The debate over the future of digital infrastructure and the energy transition has entered a new chapter this week. The National Forum of State Secretaries of Mining and Energy (FNSME) has sent a formal letter to President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, requesting institutional discussions before the rules for Redata (Special Tax Regime for Data Center Services) are finalized. The group argues that the new federal policy should recognize natural gas as an eligible source for low-emission incentives, a topic currently dividing the upper echelons of the federal government.
While the Ministry of Finance is working to ensure the regulatory decree prioritizes exclusively traditional renewable sources, states argue that excluding transitional fossil fuels could lead to severe competitive distortions. The secretaries’ primary concern is that the current program design unevenly favors regions with higher availability of solar and wind energy, penalizing territories that rely on other energy matrices to make large-scale technological projects viable.
The pursuit of parity and technological neutrality
For the FNSME, attracting data processing centers must respect the country’s regional disparities. The document sent to the federal executive emphasizes that the National Interconnected System (SIN) features distinct realities in terms of transmission and distribution infrastructure, which requires regulatory flexibility.
The entity advocates for the adoption of the principle of technological neutrality, allowing for hybrid arrangements that combine natural gas, clean energy sources, storage systems, and other innovations. This integrated approach would be fundamental to ensuring the operational stability required by these technological complexes without overloading the national power grid.
A public policy with national reach must preserve equitable conditions for participation among states, avoiding situations where pre-defined technological criteria lead, even if indirectly, to regional investment concentration.
Another sensitive point raised by state officials concerns the financial burden resulting from the installation of these large structures. The board demands that companies benefiting from Redata bear the full costs of connection, systemic reinforcements, and infrastructure expansion, shielding other residential and industrial consumers from undue tariff increases.
State mobilization gains momentum
The pressure exerted by the FNSME reflects a coordinated movement by several states that see the arrival of new data centers as a crucial opportunity for economic development. Recently, Rio Grande do Sul joined the chorus of demands through Copergs (the Energy Planning Committee of the State of Rio Grande do Sul).
The state is home to large-scale initiatives, such as the Scala AI City project, which anticipates significant energy demand. Given the limitations of the Gasbol pipeline, the state government is betting on alternatives such as interconnection with Argentine gas from Vaca Muerta and projects focused on Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG), such as the agreement recently signed with the company Edge.
Prior to the advocacy from Rio Grande do Sul, the governments of Amazonas and Sergipe had already formalized similar demands to the presidency. With states divided between the urgency of attracting foreign capital to the digital economy and the need to protect their local energy matrices, the final regulation of Redata under Lula‘s administration will define the course of technology investments in Brazil for years to come.
