Associação canônica entre indicadores de micro e minigeração distribuída e indicadores socioeconômicos dos municípios brasileiros em 2022

Abstract

The expansion of distributed generation (DG) has been one of the most significant recent transformations in the Brazilian electricity sector, fostering the decentralization of electricity generation and increasing the share of renewable energy sources, particularly solar photovoltaic systems. Given the spatial heterogeneity observed across Brazilian municipalities, this study investigates the multivariate associations between DG indicators and socioeconomic characteristics using Canonical Correlation Analysis (CCA). The analysis was conducted for 2,169 Brazilian municipalities with positive installed DG capacity in 2022. The empirical model incorporates indicators related to the intensity and composition of distributed generation, together with variables representing municipalities' economic, financial, productive, educational, urban, and social conditions. The CCA identified a statistically significant first canonical function (ρ = 0.538), which accounted for the largest share of the variance jointly explained by the two sets of variables. The results indicate that municipalities with higher educational attainment, better sanitation infrastructure, higher income levels, greater access to credit, and stronger productive dynamism tend to exhibit greater diffusion of distributed generation, whereas higher levels of social vulnerability are associated with lower participation in this market. Overall, the findings suggest that the expansion of distributed generation has occurred more intensively in municipalities with more favorable structural development conditions, indicating that Brazil's energy transition continues to reflect pre-existing socioeconomic and territorial inequalities.