The Brazilian legislation applied to the energy sector has been continuously evolving to keep up with the scientific and technological advances, the environmental agendas associated with climate change, and the preservation, conservation, and recovery of the environment. This is aimed at providing broad access to energy, quality of life, and health for the Brazilian population.

Regarding the compliance with environmental legislation, CONAMA Resolution 237/1997 allows environmental agencies to establish simplified procedures for the environmental licensing of projects with little potential for environmental impact. Also, CONAMA Resolution 279/2001 (and its amendments) establishes a simplified procedure for licensing enterprises with minor environmental impact, including generation from solar resources.

Tables A.1, A.2, A.3, and A.4 present a brief list of documents that regulate, standardize, and guide installations to harness our solar energy resources. This chapter is not intended to exhaust this subject since solar generation is a sector in continuous evolution and with rapid growth in the Brazilian energy matrix.

The technical note "Environmental legislation of interest to the electricity sector", published by Eletrobrás in September 2022, is an important source of information that presents a complete approach to the Brazilian legal system applied to the energy sector. Another important source of consultation is the Technical Note "Survey of legislation for environmental licensing of electricity generation projects using the solar resource", prepared jointly by Eletrobrás and EPE and published in May 2022 (DGOA 017/2022 NT-EPE-DEA -SMA-019/2022). Both documents are listed in the chapter of references in this Atlas.

Table A.1 includes the ABNT standards, and Table A.2 the ANEEL resolutions related to power generation from solar energy resource. Technical and scientific articles that address aspects of technical and environmental legislation (Table A.3), both nationally and regionally, are also available for public access in support of new studies, taking into account the growth of the sector and the interest of entrepreneurs, decision-makers and civil society (Hoffmann et al., 2019; Luna et al., 2019; Silva et al., 2019; Pereira, 2019; Viana & Basso, 2021; Severo et al. al., 2022). Finally, Table A.4 lists the federal and state legislation applied to the sector.

Table A.1 - Norms directed to electricity generation plants from solar energy resource.

Table A.2 - Ordinances and normative resolutions aimed at generating electricity by solar source.

Table A.3 - Technical and scientific articles addressing technical and environmental legislation at various levels.

Table A.4 - Laws, decrees, ordinances, and norms regulating energy generation activity.