More than a day after the start of the power outage caused by the passage of an extratropical cyclone in the state of São Paulo, residents of the capital of São Paulo are still living this Thursday (11) with a lack of energy which, in some neighborhoods, lasts more than 50 hours.
Enel’s delay in restoring power to the metropolitan area has again sparked complaints from customers. This is the fifth power outage to hit the region in just over two years, since November 2023. When asked, the dealership did not give an estimate on when service will be fully restored.
Besides the lack of electricity, the city is also facing other problems caused by the storm, such as lack of water, chaos at airports and more than a thousand fallen trees.
This Thursday at 8:45 p.m., 1.3 million Enel customers in Greater São Paulo were still without electricity. That number fell to 1.2 million by early afternoon, but rose again. At its peak on Wednesday (10), the outage affected 2.2 million properties. Another 300,000 people started having supply problems this Thursday.
The pace of service recovery is similar to that recorded during recent outages. This is despite customer complaints, government demands and promises from Enel to resolve the problems.
In October last year, after a power outage that affected 2.1 million properties in Enel’s concession area, the Leaf released a report showing that the speed with which the company resolved the power outage was slower than what it experienced during the November 2023 power outage, the first in the series.
Since then, another similar problem occurred last December, affecting approximately 666 thousand households, in addition to the current one, which reaches 2.2 million.
What we can see is that the delay in the return of electricity remains the norm. In 2023, 2 million properties were affected and, after 24 hours, 800,000 were still facing problems. In October 2024, 2.1 million homes were affected and, a day later, 1.34 million still did not have electricity, a scenario similar to the current one.
Asked about the delay in the return of electricity to the most affected areas, Enel said that in “some localities the restoration is more complex, since they involve the complete reconstruction of the network, with the replacement of poles, transformers and, sometimes, the rerouting of kilometers of cables.”
The company also says the capital São Paulo remains one of the worst-hit regions, with more than 900,000 properties without power, or more than 15% of the total.
Enel says entire sections of the network have been damaged, impacting energy supplies. The company claims to have mobilized its teams since the start of the power cuts and “from yesterday to 5 a.m. today (Thursday), more than 500,000 affected customers have regained their normal supply”.
The governor of São Paulo, Tarcísio de Freitas (Republicans), however, declared on Thursday that the state was hostage to Enel and once again requested the intervention and expiration of the concession contract for the supply of electricity in the metropolitan region. The company is already working to extend the contract by 30 years, which expires in 2028.
“We have a very old contract with the Ministry of Mines and Energy and that is regulated by Aneel (a federal authority). We need investments to automate the network because every year we will have weather events,” said Tarcísio.
“The emergency plan did not work, yesterday we had 1,600 field teams, according to the company, and it is absolutely insufficient, we ended up having 2.2 million people without electricity.”
“This is why we are proposing the start of the process of expiration and intervention, we are critical of the intervention. The intervention works because the intervener will have the money (from Enel) to carry out the work. What worries us is the lack of speed in restoring energy”, continued the governor.
He said he had informed the Ministry of Mines and Energy and Aneel of all the issues. The two organizations manage and supervise the concession contract.
This Thursday, the Attorney General of Justice, Paulo Sérgio de Oliveira e Costa, instructed the Consumer Protection Prosecutor’s Office of Capital to monitor the crisis and take measures for Enel to reimburse and compensate consumers affected by the loss of food and medicine.
When contacted for the report, Enel did not comment on the governor’s statements. In a note published on Thursday, the dealership informed that São Paulo and the metropolitan area were hit by a wind storm considered historic by Inmet, which lasted about 12 hours yesterday.
The wind caused by the extratropical cyclone and the lack of energy also had effects on the airports of São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. Until 10 p.m. this Thursday, flight cancellations at Congonhas airport reached 300, cumulative over the two days of disruption.
In Rio, concessionaire RIOgaleão reported that as of 3:40 p.m., Galeão had had 39 canceled flights and received 31 diverted from Congonhas and Guarulhos since Wednesday. The balance includes arrivals and departures.
The Ministry of Mines and Energy said teams from energy distributors near São Paulo are moving to the most affected regions of the state, including the capital and Campos do Jordão.
Aneel and Arsesp (Public Services Regulatory Agency of the State of São Paulo) say they are jointly carrying out inspections at Enel headquarters to assess compliance with the emergency plan and service restoration measures.
The latest power cuts in Greater São Paulo
3.Nov.23: Several regions of São Paulo recorded a series of destruction that afternoon due to a storm accompanied by wind gusts exceeding 100 km/h and hail. At least three deaths have been confirmed by Civil Protection and the Fire Department. More than 110 hours after the storm, around 11 thousand properties remained, Wednesday (8) at 10 a.m., without electricity in the metropolitan region of the capital, provoking protests from residents.
18.Mar.24: A power outage caused interruptions in the electricity supply, even affecting the water supply. According to Enel, an incident in the underground network which serves the Higienópolis district caused an interruption around 10:30 a.m. Early this Tuesday morning (19), power outages were again reported.
October 11.24: The city suffered a major power outage after a strong storm, affecting more than 2 million homes. Some areas took more than a week for service to be fully restored. The Union Comptroller General (CGU) later concluded that Enel had failed in its contingency plans during this and other events in 2024.
21.Dec.24: Another large-scale event occurred between Friday (20) and Saturday (21), felling dozens of trees, flooding roads and causing rivers to overflow. In the capital’s metropolitan area, around 666,000 Enel customers were left without power. According to the company, 70% of incidents were caused by wires coming into contact with vegetation. Saturday at 8 p.m., nearly 88,000 homes were still without electricity.
10.Dec.25: In the current case, winds gusting to nearly 100 km/h left more than 2.2 million properties without power in Greater São Paulo, and about 1.3 million of them were still in the dark more than 24 hours later.
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