Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has signed into law the bill recently passed by the Brazilian Senate that establishes regulations on allocating and permitting offshore wind development areas. The Brazilian president has vetoed provisions related to fossil fuels in the final version of the legislation which were added while the bill was in the Chamber of Deputies.

As reported in December 2024, the new law, first introduced in 2021, focuses on offshore wind and other offshore renewable energy sources and establishes an approach to identifying and awarding offshore wind areas, as well as the licensing processes, and mandates lease payments to the State. The regulation applies to all projects located off the Brazilian coast, including territorial waters, the continental shelf and the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ).

During its time in the Chamber of Deputies, the lower house of Brazil’s Congress, the bill was amended to also contain provisions for fossil fuel subsidies, including coal and natural gas. This was debated in the Senate with some senators welcoming the provisions and others saying these would cause an average increase of 7.5 per cent in Brazilians’ energy bills and were not related to the original subject of the bill which is renewable energy.