X-Nico

8 unusual facts about Electricity sector in Brazil


Electricity sector in Brazil

Also in 2007, Electronuclear was granted permission to resume construction of Angra 3, a 1,350 MW plant, and is currently in the process of selecting a site for a fourth nuclear power plant.

In addition, the government launched a program for contracting emergency generation capacity, with bids for a total of 2,100MW of new thermal capacity accepted.

The first auction was held in December 2004, with contracts for a total of about 40GW traded.

The three largest projects studied, Jirau, Santo Antônio and Belo Monte, are already beyond the feasibility phase: In 2007, Ibama, the environmental agency, gave approval for the construction of two new dams, Jirau (3,300 MW) and Santo Antônio (3,150 MW), on the Madeira River in the state of Rondônia.

About 88 percent of the electricity fed into the national grid is estimated to come from hydroelectric generation, with over 25% coming from a single hydropower plant, the massive 14 GW Itaipu dam facility, located between Brazil and Paraguay on the Paraná River.

As summarized in the table above, Brazil has two nuclear power plants, Angra 1 (657 MW) and Angra 2 (1,350 MW), both of them owned by Eletronuclear, a subsidiary of the state-owned Eletrobrás.

The Brazilian electricity model is fully deregulated, which allows generators to sell all of their "assured energy" via freely negotiated contracts with consumers above 3MW or via energy auctions administered by CCEE (See energy auctions below).

These studies correspond to a total potential capacity of 31,000MW.



see also