Brazil moves forward to resume electricity connection with Venezuela

Brazil, since May, has been working to reconnect to the Guri hydroelectric plant in order to supply the state of Roraima. However, it has a plan B just in case.

The Brazilian Minister of Mines and Energy, Alexandre Silveira, indicated that his country is taking concrete steps to resume the connection with the Venezuelan power grid through the Guri hydroelectric power plant in the state of Bolivar.

Silveira, in an interview with the EFE news agency on Monday, September 18, said that integration with Venezuela in the electricity area has already begun in order to provide security of energy supply to the extreme north of Brazil.

"We have already begun to integrate with Venezuela. A decree has been issued, which is in the regulatory phase, to return to importing clean and renewable electric energy, hydraulic energy from the Guri power plant in Venezuela", said the Brazilian minister.

He also stated that Brazil is working on another alternative project to guarantee energy security in the state of Roraima, with the construction of a transmission line that will connect that state to Manaus, capital of Amazonas.

Specifically, he said that in October the first two towers of the transmission line that will connect Roraima to Brazil's national electricity system for the first time will be inaugurated.

"Then we will have 100% of a state with the continental dimension that Brazil has interconnected through a transmission system", he added.

At the end of , President Nicolás Maduro traveled to Brazil to meet with his counterpart, Luiz Inácio Lula Da Silva, where several issues were discussed, among them the resumption of the sale of electricity from Guri to the state of Roraima in the Amazonian nation. At that time, Lula Da Silva expressed his country's interest in recovering energy relations (and of all kinds) with Venezuela, and emphasized that the line that connects the hydroelectric plant located in Guri must return to operation because "nothing justifies that Roraima is the only state that is outside Brazil's energy matrix using thermoelectric energy, which is more expensive and pollutes".

For his part, President Nicolás Maduro expressed that the country is ready to recover the connection with Roraima, which would be of about 120 MW, for which a minimum of five million dollars would be required, and invited Brazilian businessmen to invest in this.