ENERGY-BRAZIL: Gov’t Plan Aims to Surmount Electricity Shortage

By Mario Osava Reprint | | Print |

Mario Osava

RIO DE JANEIRO, Jul 6 2001 (IPS) - Brazil’s government has a new plan for overcoming the nation’s energy crisis by boosting electricity supplies 25 percent by 2003, possible through imports from Argentina and the construction of 36 electricity generating plants, announced President Fernando Henrique Cardoso, Thursday.

Through investments totalling 13 billion dollars, 19,919 megawatts will be added to Brazil’s current energy production capacity of 75,000 megawatts, Cardoso stated in Brasilia.

The construction of 18 new hydroelectric plants and the expansion of three others will make the biggest contribution to the total – 7,803 megawatts – and will cost 4.6 billion dollars.

The government will continue to privatise the sector, pointed out the president, and 60 percent of the needed investment is to involve private capital.

Itaipú, the largest hydroelectric dam in the world, shared with Paraguay and located on the two countries’ shared border, will be enlarged, adding two new turbines that are to produce 700 megawatts.

The Tucuruí hydroelectric plant in the Amazon region will double its production capacity of 4,000 megawatts, under the emergency plan announced Thursday.

Another 6,420 megawatts will be generated by 15 new thermoelectric plants, nearly all to be fuelled by natural gas imported from Bolivia, though some will be coal-fired. This will require investment of 4.2 billion dollars, more than half to come from the private sector.

In reality, said the president, there are proposals to build 60 of these plants, but “there would not be enough natural gas” to supply all of them. Given this situation, the government will grant construction permits for the plans that “best attend to the public interest,” in other words, located in areas that need electricity most.

This emergency energy plan would increase Brazil’s predicted consumption of natural gas from 70 million cubic metres to 90 million by 2005.

Under this initiative, imports of electricity from Argentina will double over the next two years, with the purchase of another 1,048 megawatts as an additional measure to confront Brazil’s energy shortage.

Alternative and “clean” sources of electricity will also play an important role. By 2003, the government initiative calls for a capacity of 1,050 megawatts of wind-generated electricity. Currently just 30 megawatts come from this source in Brazil.

Electricity generated from biomass, especially sugarcane waste pulp, is to provide another 960 megawatts. But this is a conservative goal, as the sector has the potential to generate 4,000 megawatts, Cardoso said.

By early 2003, Brazil’s energy situation should be completely under control, assured Pedro Parente, head of the Energy Crisis Management Committee, created in May to draw up plans for energy rationing and for increasing electricity supplies in the immediate and middle terms.

In addition to energy generation, limited this year by the lack of rain and Brazil’s dependence on hydroelectric plants, another bottleneck occurs in the transmission of electricity because the leading production sources are located far from the centres of consumption.

The Committee announced that 13 new transmission lines would be installed by 2003, covering 6,036 km.

Energy rationing plans, which took effect June, affect 70 percent of the Brazilian population, which is concentrated in the southeast, northeast and central-east, where water levels in the reservoirs of hydroelectric plants are far below normal.

The rationing measures include a 35-percent reduction in the illumination of public areas in the cities and 20-percent cuts in residential and commercial consumption. Industry has to save 15 to 25 percent, with the stricter requirements aimed at companies with intensive energy use.

Failure to comply with these objectives is to be punished through fines, and if the offender surpasses the established limits a second month, electrical service may be cut, regardless of whether it involves a home or a company.

Energy experts immediately expressed their doubts about the effectiveness of Cardoso’s announced plan. Ari Ferreira Abreu, a specialist at the University of Sao Paulo, said it is unlikely that the reservoirs will recover their water levels to the extent that they would be able to produce the amount of energy called for by the government plan.

And the electricity generated by thermoelectric plants will be very expensive because it involves a fuel traded in dollars and whose international price follows the ups and downs of petroleum. The depreciation of the Brazilian ‘real’ by more than 25 percent since the beginning of the year has also contributed to driving up prices of thermoelectric energy.

Energy-saving measures and greater use of alternative energy sources, such as sugarcane biomass, would be more appropriate, according to Abreu.

ENERGY-BRAZIL: Gov’t Plan Aims to Surmount Electricity Shortage

By Mario Osava Reprint | | Print |

Mario Osava

RIO DE JANEIRO, Jul 6 2001 (IPS) - Brazil’s government has a new plan for overcoming the nation’s energy crisis by boosting electricity supplies 25 percent by 2003, possible through imports from Argentina and the construction of 36 electricity generating plants, announced President Fernando Henrique Cardoso, Thursday.
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