Brasilia.- Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva this Friday approved a decree that will facilitate the resumption of the northern country’s electricity connection with Venezuela, as well as energy exchanges with Argentina and Uruguay.
The decree was signed during an event in the Amazonian city of Parintins, where Lula reiterated that he had returned to power to “reconstruct” public policies affecting his first two terms, between 2003 and 2010, and those of Dilma Rousseff designated successor. and dismissed in 2016 that have been “abandoned” by other governments.
According to Mines and Energy Minister Alexandre Silveira, this measure will be extended to other countries in the region and will be the starting point “on the way to the South American power interconnection”.
The connection with Venezuela primarily benefits the state of Roraima, which lies on the border with that country and the region of Brazil, which is not connected to the so-called National Interconnected System (SIM), which it will soon join, as announced on Friday .
Roraima has drawn electricity from Venezuela’s Guri Dam since 2001, but the flow was cut off in 2019 by the decision of then-Brazilian President, the far-right Jair Bolsonaro, to sever all ties with Venezuela for ideological reasons.
The resumption of power supply from Guri to Roraima was discussed on May 29 when Lula received Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro in Brasilia.
The Bolivarian leader then said his country was “ready” to renew “energy cooperation” with Brazil, but clarified that “restoring the transmission lines” would require investments of around $5 million.
According to official sources, the matter will be revisited next week when Maduro will travel to the Brazilian city of Belem to attend a summit of Amazonian presidents convened by Lula.
Regarding Argentina and Uruguay, the decree signed on Friday will reduce the bureaucracy for energy exchanges with these countries starting from the Itaipu hydroelectric power station, ownership of which Brazil shares with Paraguay.
At the same ceremony, Lula also announced the return of the Light for All program, implemented in 2003 and also suspended by Bolsonaro in 2019, which envisages connecting hundreds of cities to the national electricity grid.
As part of this, transmission lines were inaugurated to three cities in the Amazon, which are also not connected to national grids and are mainly powered by hydroelectric power plants.
The communities of Parintins, Itacoatiara and Juruti will begin receiving energy from these grids this Friday, followed later by another 208 Amazonian cities that will now generate their own energy using more polluting and expensive fossil fuels.
With information from EFE.