Brazil needs to boost its electricity-generating capacity by 50% in the next 10 years to keep pace with growing demand for power, according to the country’s energy minister, Edison Lobão. Electrobrás, the state-controlled power holding group, is building an integrated Latin American power grid to help it meet some of this demand through imports.
Electrobrás, whose American depositary shares are traded on the New York Stock Exchange, plans to help construct five hydroelectric dams in the Peruvian Amazon, costing about $12 billion. The cost will be shared with Peruvian and other partners.
Meanwhile, Electrobrás is seeking a $3.2 billion loan from BNDES, Brazil’s national development bank, to finance the construction of the Angra-3 nuclear power plant, the country’s third nuclear plant. Brazil has the world’s sixth-largest uranium reserves.
Latin America’s largest utility, Electrobrás won the rights last November to build more than 3,350 miles of power lines to carry electricity from hydroelectric plants in Brazil’s northern Amazon region to cities such as São Paulo. The country gets 80% of its electricity from hydropower.
—GP
