Rio de Janeiro – The Brazilian Development Bank (BNDES) should invest at least 10 billion Brazilian reals (US$ 4.3 billion) in the electric sector this year, although the disbursements may rise as high as 12 billion (US$ 5.2 billion). For the hydroelectric complex of Madeira River, in Rondônia, which includes Santo Antonio and Girau plants, the bank should turn 4 billion reals (US$ 1.7 billion).
Last year, BNDES disbursements for the electric sector totalled 7 billion reals (US$ 3 billion). The Madeira River complex alone should receive investment of 27 billion reals (US$ 11.6 billion) from the bank up to 2015. Santo Antonio should receive 10 billion reals (US$ 4.3 billion), another 10 billion reals should go to Girau and 7 billion reals (US$ 3 billion) should go to the transmission sector.
"The area of electric energy is traditional for the bank. It has the same origin as the BNDES, in the 1950s, when the enterprise was established targeting the infrastructure sector," pointed out the head of the BNDES Energy Department, Nelson Siffert, in an exclusive interview to Agência Brasil. The bank finances both the area of generation and the area of transmission and distribution.
Currently, as a financer, the BNDES is participating in the construction of over 20 hydroelectric power plants, which employ over 20,000 workers. Some should start operating in 2012, others in 2014, eliminating the risk of the need for rationing of electricity or blackouts. These mills already obey the rules established by the system adopted in 2004, through which concessions go to the investor who offers the lowest tariffs to consumers.
"Brazil has a different electric system from the rest of the world, as almost 75% of our generation park is hybrid, whereas abroad the average is 16%," stated Siffert. He added that the Brazilian energy matrix is very clean, defending the use of the Brazilian plateaus and plains for production of electric energy, recalling that the Amazon is the most important potential energy area for Brazil, with a capacity for generation of 100,000 megawatts of water energy. "Brazil may triple its energy park," he said.
In the point of view of Siffert, an economist graduated form the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ), the lack of use of this clean and cheap energy has a cost. Although he recognises the hardships to overcome adversity, he defended the adoption of priority areas for production of energy, considering ecological zoning. As society no longer accepts dams with such great reservoirs, causing great flooding, the way out is building smaller reservoirs, like Santo Antonio, for example, which lost 2,000 megawatts of power to answer to the demands of environmental organisations.
But Siffert understands that the country cannot abandon the idea of building hydroelectric power plants in plateaus and plains. "We must use this advantage in benefit of society, of the economy, of the society," he added.
The head of the Energy Department at the BNDES recognized that there is great resistance and bias with regard to hydroelectric power plants, whose energy is not even recognized as renewable by international non-governmental organisations (NGOs). This bias, according to Siffert, "is due to actions in the past, whose most singular example is the construction of Sobradinho dam, with flooding that devastated the environment with no control."
*Translated by Mark Ament
