Brazil suffers the worst drought in almost a century | Low rainfall and possible power outages

Brazil goes through biggest water crisis in 91 years compared to lack of rain in recent months. The lack of water coincides with the advance of deforestation in the Amazon, accentuated under the government of Jair Bolsonaro, source of supply for local rivers, with an impact at the regional level as in the case of the Paraná River. The situation endangers the energy supply, as hydropower plants have minimum capacities in their reservoirs and generate 65% of the country’s energy.

President of Brazil Jair Bolsonaro was forced to order energy saving measures in public administration buildings, which is expected to restrict consumption between 10 and 20 percent, as published Wednesday in the Official Journal. The target of reducing energy consumption imposed by the presidential decree will be in effect between September of this year and April 2022.

The presidential decree includes recommendations and alternatives to reduce the use of energy-consuming equipment in public facilities, such as reducing air conditioning, daytime running lights and even computers. All public bodies must create internal committees responsible for consumption reduction measures and publish their energy balances on the web month by month.

Each public administration agency must also show its consumption levels with annual comparisons since 2018 and offer explanations in case they do not meet the savings target. The federal government manages around 23,000 public buildings owned or rented, including schools, hospitals, universities and administrative buildings.

According to experts, voluntary savings measures could prevent the government from being forced to impose unpopular electricity rationing.

Deforestation and climate change

The progress of deforestation in the Amazon, whose unique ecosystem generates so-called “flying” rivers which drain the rains to feed the river basins, This is one of the reasons which are analyzed in the face of the critical drought the country is experiencing.

Deforestation, a product of the advancing agricultural frontier for breeding and growing soybeans, also causes a decrease in the uptake of Co2, a greenhouse gas that increases global warming. According to the Deforestation Alert System of the Amazonian Institute of Man and the Environment (Imazon), over the past decade, the Amazon rainforest has lost 649 square kilometers of native vegetation.

Pese a que el Gobierno ha descartado por ahora la posibilidad de imponer un racionamiento para reducir el consumo de energía o el riesgo de un apagón, los analistas han alertado sobre la crítica situación de las hidroeléctricas, responsible for the mayor parte de la energía generada por the country.

Dams at minimum level

The intense drought and low rainfall in recent months have left the dams of much of Brazil’s hydropower plants at minimum levels: dams in the southeast and central-western regions of the country, responsible for 70% of the hydropower produced by Brazil, their water levels are below 23% of their capacity.

This forced the activation of more expensive and more polluting thermal power stations to compensate for the reduction in production. Brazil has an installed capacity to generate 186 gigawatts of energy, 65% of which is hydroelectric, the cheapest and least polluting source, and 17% thermal.