Blackout caused frustration at public hearing ANEEL

This Thursday, 07/11, the public hearing 040/2019 of ANEEL – National Electric Energy Agency – in Brasília was temporarily suspended due to a lack of electricity. This tragicomedy seems to be a portrait of the Brazilian electricity sector, which has suffered for years from a lack of planning and structure. In the blacksmith's house, the spit is made of wood? Not in ANEEL. In addition to leading the electricity sector into chaos and trying to promote the dismantling of the photovoltaic solar energy market in the country, the agency appears to be incapable of guaranteeing the supply of electricity to its own events.

 

The event was the “D” day of the Brazilian solar sector,
despite the lack of light.

Today's event, which started as a complete fiasco, was the true "D" day for the Brazilian solar sector. Yellow helmets from all over Brazil filled the pavilion for the public hearing called by the ANEEL to promote discussions on the proposed changes in Normative Resolution (RN) 482. Caravans from all Brazilian states headed to Brasília after several weeks of campaigns spread on social media and promoted by the main entities in the photovoltaic sector, such as ABSOLAR – Brazilian Solar Energy Association – and ABGD – Brazilian Distributed Generation Association.

The campaign, which became known on social media as the “yellow helmets movement”, managed to attract the attention of a large part of Brazilian society that is interested in the social, economic and environmental benefits of photovoltaic solar energy. The movement has become very intense in recent weeks, culminating in today’s “D-day”, and has managed to attract the attention of politicians from the legislative and executive branches, who have promised to pay attention to the fight against the attempt to ANEEL to exterminate the distributed generation of electrical energy in Brazil, in which the photovoltaic solar source predominates.

Blackout frustrates movement in defense of solar energy. Public hearing 040/2019 of the ANEEL is without light.

Before the hearing could begin, while the pavilion was already packed with people hoping for the outcome of the hearing, the event was suddenly suspended. Around noon and lasting until early afternoon, a power outage caused great frustration among all participants. In a situation that borders on the ridiculous, the movement of the yellow helmets was confined to a cramped space, without light or air conditioning. Was this an attempt by the ANEEL to literally “stifle” the movement? It would be surprising if we weren’t in Brazil, the country of ready-made jokes.

Ready joke: ANEEL left the solar movement in the dark.
The hearing with more than 800 participants was interrupted twice due to a lack of electricity.

In addition to the lack of electricity, the note published on the website caused even more astonishment. ANEEL about the lack of contributions to the hearing. After an intense movement by the solar sector in defense of distributed generation, no contributions were received by the agency? Another joke! Furthermore, in what may be a clear attempt to sabotage the solar energy movement, ANEEL did not provide real-time coverage for this event, a common practice for all of the agency's events. It is strange that this was the only agency event without live and online broadcasting.

In a note published on the website of ANEEL, the agency claims not to have received contributions from society for the public hearing. 

Update: 07/11 – 16:07 – The press office of ANEEL contacted our board and requested that information about the event be added. According to the agency, the power outage was temporary and despite the disruption, the event was resumed in the early afternoon. The agency did not comment on the other facts pointed out by the Canal Solar: non-receipt of contributions and absence of live transmission at this event.

Update: 09/11 – 16:28 – In response to some requests from readers, we changed the title of the article to reflect the frustration caused by the blackout, without implying (which would be erroneous) that the event was frustrated. In fact, as reported on the same day by Canal Solar in another article, the hearing took place “normally” despite two power outages that left over 800 people in the dark for almost an hour, adding up the duration of the two events. Read more here: Yellow army invades Brasília to defend solar energy.