The Brazilian government ordered the Federal Police to investigate the blackout that this Tuesday left a large part of the country without electricity for a few hours. in order to determine if the causes were only “technical” or if it could have been provoked.
“We determine internal investigations and we officiate to the Ministry of Justice a request for a police investigation to find out in detail” what happened and establish whether it could have been the consequence of a “possible fraud”, announced in a press conference the Minister of Mines and Energy, Alexandre Silveira.
“The only thing that leads us to request this investigation is the sensitivity of the national electricity sector” and its “strategic nature”, which does not allow neglecting “its security”, he stressed.
He clarified, however, that an “overload” was detected on transmission lines in the state of Ceará, in the northeast of the country, one of the most impacted regions.
However, he maintained that, due to “the robustness” of the country’s transmission system, for a service interruption of the magnitude registered this Tuesday, “just one event” would not suffice, so it tries to determine if there was another failure.
The blackout occurred at 8:31 a.m. local time and caused a “separation” of the networks that link the north and south of Brazil and service interruptions in 26 of the 27 states of the country.
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🚨 BRAZIL HAIR LIGHT PEAK! States of various regions of the country will register a peak of light in the manhã of this terça-feira (15). Ouvintes da BandNews FM report lack of energy in all regions of the country. The problem occurred around 08:40 a.m. in the morning. #BandJornalismo pic.twitter.com/62qDC3r7xN
— Band Jornalismo (@BandJornalismo) August 15, 2023
The north and northeast regions, the most affected, recovered service at 2:30 p.m. local time, six hours after the system went down, while in the south and southeast the ruling lasted about 45 minutes, the minister said.
In São Paulo, power outages caused slowdowns and delays on several subway lines, causing crowds at stations during rush hour.
The blackout affected almost all of the country’s states, with the exception of the Amazonian state of Roraima (north), whose supply depends on the Venezuelan network.
Silveira assured that this blackout was “extremely rare” and occurred “at a time of abundant water reservoirs.” that feed the hydroelectric plants that generate most of the electricity used in the country.
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Although he did not associate it with the blackout, Silveira criticized the privatization, carried out last year, of the Eletrobras company, responsible for a third of the generation and which owns close to half of the country’s transmission lines.
“Eletrobras was privatized in 2022, on the eve of an election” by the government of then-President Jair Bolsonaro, defeated at the polls by the current president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who “opposed” that operation, he said.
He even said that, although the Government maintains 43% of the shares of Eletrobras, it was not informed in advance of the resignation of the company’s president, Wilson Ferreira Junior, announced on Monday night and of which he learned from the press.
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“That comes to reaffirm our criticism,” said Silveira, who pointed out that the Government should “at least have been notified of what was happening” in the company by the Board of Directors.
“This abrupt change, without a synergy with public policy, only reaffirms what has been said. Privatization did badly to Brazil and took away the possibility of having a more harmonious system,” said the minister.
EFE
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