Aneel to start Light for All program inspection

Brazil's power regulator Aneel will start this month a full inspection of the government-sponsored rural power supply expansion program known as Light for All beginning in Minas Gerais state, Aneel said in a statement. The program was started in the first half of 2004 and aims to expand power supply to 12 million people living in poor rural regions in the country by 2008. Overall investment in the program is set at 7bn reais (US$2.8bn) including resources from companies, subsidized loans and application of sector funds managed by federal power holding company Eletrobrás. The first company to be inspected will be Minas Gerais state power company Cemig on May 9-20. Aneel will review documentation and visit locations said to be included in the program. Cemig aims to spend 1.64bn reais to add 176,237 new connections through end-2006. The company is currently in talks with Eletrobrás to raise the value of each connection to 9,000 reais from the projected 3,000 reais, Cemig officials have said. Aneel will inspect Coelba in June, the statement said. Coelba is controlled by Spanish power company Iberdrola and operates in the northeastern state of Bahia. Bahia is the state with the largest number of connections to be made under the program. By end-2008 Coelba must have made 357,970 new connections in poor rural areas, according to Coelba information. In 2004 Coelba announced 5,700 new connections under the program with investments of 20.7mn reais, well below the 20,394 target. The difference was due to problems in the negotiations with equipment suppliers, which were trying to raise prices because of the high demand, and local suppliers not being prepared to supply such a large volume of equipment, Coelba told BNamericas in an email.