The power outage that left more than a million properties without electricity in Enel’s São Paulo concession area has exponentially increased the demand for generators in the capital of São Paulo. Small, medium and large stores that sell this equipment receive hundreds of calls a day, at a rate that frightens even salespeople who have experienced other periods of power outages.
THE Leaf contacted five rental companies and sellers of generator sets this Friday (12) and, in almost all cases, heard the same thing: the demand in recent days was so great that even the investments made in recent months were not enough to meet it.
As of Friday afternoon, around 700,000 properties were still facing lack of electricity in the state of São Paulo, including 482,000 in the capital alone. And Enel’s lack of forecast for the return of service should further exacerbate the tension on the supply of generators.
Edimar Araujo Sousa, CEO of Multipower Geradores, says his establishment has the 140 generators — of all sizes — rented, half of which were removed from the Itaquaquecetuba warehouse in the last two days. The other half goes to industrial or commercial customers, as a form of insurance in the event of a power outage.
During last year’s October blackout, when a storm hit São Paulo’s power structures, leaving 3.3 million consumers without power, many for almost a week, the company had 60 generators.
“The demand is exponential; we had invested in new equipment, structures, cables and trucks, but we could not meet the demand. If we had invested ten times more, it still would not have been possible to meet the demand,” he says. “We even regret that we cannot serve everyone, but we have given priority to the elderly equipped with ventilators and to hospitals. Of the last three outages, this one has been the most requested.”
According to Sousa, generators of up to 250 kVA (kilovolt-ampere), used to power businesses and buildings, broke down in the early hours of Thursday (11).
Demand exists despite the high prices of equipment. According to the price study carried out by the report, the daily rental of generators used by commercial establishments, residential buildings, houses and apartments ranges between R$2,000 and R$10,000, and in some cases the customer still has to purchase diesel to power the generator.
“It’s a critical moment where even if you put all the rental companies together, they can’t respond. We receive on average 2,500 calls a day asking for a generator, while in normal times we receive 50 calls,” says Jorge Moreno, director of new business at Tecnogera, one of the largest rental companies in Brazil.
Now, faced with the lack of stock, the company has given priority to serving establishments that are already its customers. Tecnogera, which rents generators from 25 kVA to 5,000 kVA, says that on average 70% of calls received come from homes and businesses.
“Our stock is at zero, but what we are doing is giving satisfaction and asking customers to prepare for the next outage, because there will be new incidents during this rainy period,” says Moreno.
A similar strategy has been adopted by the company A Geradora, a rental company belonging to the French group Loxam, which still has stock in its warehouse located in Guarulhos. Cândido Tercero, commercial director of the company, says that companies in the food sector demand monthly rents. “As people are worried, they are already paying monthly rents, because now it is windy, then it rains,” he says.
According to him, the A Geradora company works each year with 70% of its generators, leaving the remaining 30% for crisis periods, such as power outages.
Among medium and small rental companies, the pace is similar, but due to lower demand during the year. DWT Geradores, present for example in Santana, Guarulhos and Itajaí, usually finds customers for 60% of its equipment. Today, all one hundred generators have been sold or rented.
“We are already expecting this demand due to the quality of energy in Brazil and the problems of Enel, but no company can prepare for an event like this. What we are doing is buying more generators as the investment allows,” explains Diogo Calor, director of DWT. During the power outage in October last year, the company had 75 generators, 25 fewer than today.
In this sector there are also companies that only sell hardware. In this case, demand appears to have been lower. Willians Durante, employee of Gensetec Geradores de Energia, located in Barra Funda, says that usually the store receives five calls a day, but during the power outage there were around 50. “The problem is that most people want to rent, so very few calls turn into sales.”
In Gensetec’s case, most sales are for small generators that can only provide power to a few electronic devices in a home, such as refrigerators and cell phones. Store equipment varies between R$1,700 and R$6,500.
About The Author
