Hydro Development Is Seen as Fast Way To Meeting Needs
On June 1, 2001, apagão, the Portuguese word for “blackout,” became part of the vernacular in Brazil. In order to avoid a collapse of the national electricity grid, the government issued an order to slash the country’s energy consumption by a fifth.
There was no other option due to the severe lack of capacity and the subsequent effect on the Brazilian economy was a dramatic: inflation surged, the currency crumpled and the country’s risk rating dipped into the negative range. Today, the specter of those days has risen again. Given the current 4.8% annual growth rate, there is a 30% chance of blackouts returning to Brazil by 2012, according to the Acende Institute, a group representing Brazil’s electricity industry.