EN 
PT_BR 
This Thursday, 11/07, public hearing 040/2019 of ANEEL – National Electric Energy Agency – in Brasília was temporarily suspended due to a lack of electricity. This tragicomedy appears to be a portrait of the Brazilian electricity sector, which has suffered for years from a lack of planning and structuring. Is the skewer made of wood in a blacksmith's house? Not at ANEEL. In addition to driving 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 for 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 real fiasco, was the real “D” day of the Brazilian solar sector. Yellow helmets from all parts of Brazil filled the pavilion of the public hearing called by ANEEL to promote discussions on the changes proposed in Normative Resolution (RN) 482. Caravans from all states of Brazil headed to Brasília after several weeks of campaigns disseminated on social networks and promoted by the main entities in the photovoltaic sector, such as ABSOLAR – Brazilian Solar Energy Association – and ABGD – Brazilian Association of Distributed Generation.
The campaign, which became known on social media as the “yellow helmet movement”, managed to attract the attention of a large part of Brazilian society who are 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 managed to attract the attention of politicians from the legislative and executive branches, who promised to pay attention to the fight against ANEEL's attempt to exterminate the generation distributed electricity supply in Brazil, in which photovoltaic solar sources predominate.
Blackout frustrates movement in defense of solar energy. ANEEL public hearing 040/2019 goes without power.
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 the early afternoon, an electricity outage caused great frustration among all participants. In a situation that borders on the ridiculous, the movement of the yellow helmets was confined in a cramped space, without light or refrigeration. Could this be an attempt by 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 ANEEL website about the lack of contributions to the hearing caused even more astonishment. After intense movement by the solar sector in defense of distributed generation, no contribution was received by the agency? Another joke! Furthermore, in what could be a clear attempt to sabotage the solar energy movement, ANEEL did not provide real-time publicity for this event, a common practice in all of the agency's events. It is strange that this was the only agency event without live and online transmission.
In a note published on the ANEEL website, the agency states that it did not receive contributions from society for the public hearing.
Update: 07/11 – 16:07 – ANEEL's press office 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 resumed in the early afternoon. The agency did not comment on the other facts pointed out by the Solar Channel: 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 Solar Channel in another matter, the hearing took place “normally” despite two power outages that left over 800 people in the dark for almost 1 hour, adding up the duration of the two events. Read more here: Yellow army invades Brasília to defend solar energy.
