Overview of Brazil Electricity System
The electricity sector in Brazil is the largest in South America and the third–largest in the Americas behind the United States and Canada[1].
Sources
Brazil is the second-largest producer of hydroelectric power in the world, after only China, and hydropower accounted for more than 70% of the country’s electricity generation in 2018[2].
Located on the border between Brazil and Paraguay, Itaipu Hydroelectric Dam is the largest operational hydroelectric energy producer in the world, with an installed generation capacity of 14GW, accounted for ~25% of Brazil’s hydropower generation[3].
Brazil’s National Interconnected System consists of four subsystems: South, Southeast / Midwest, Northeast and most of the North region[4]. Less than 1% of the country’s electricity consumption is located outside the SIN, in small isolated systems located mainly northern region[5].
Transmission system
Most of Brazil’s hydroelectric plants are located in the country’s Amazon River basin in the north, but Brazil’s demand for electricity is mainly along the eastern coast, particularly in the southern portion. Reliance on hydropower for most of the country’s electricity generation, combined with the distant and disparate locations of its demand centers, has presented electricity reliability challenges2.
Because most of Brazil’s generation capacity is located far from urban demand centers, significant investment in transmission and distribution systems is required. The Madeira transmission line, completed in 2014, is the longest (until the completion of 2nd phase of Belo Monte transmission) high–voltage, direct–current line in the world and spans 1,476 miles to link hydropower plants in the Amazon Basin to major load centers in the southeast. Increased emphasis on distributed generation will help reduce the need for additional transmission infrastructure in the future[6].
As of October 2017, Brazil’s transmission network comprised 136,835 km of lines and 343,816 MVA of transformer capacity at the 230 kV to 750 kV levels. During 2006-16, the line length increased at a CAGR of 4 per cent and transformer capacity at a CAGR of 6 per cent. In December 2017, State Grid Brazil Holding (SGBH), the Brazil-based concern of China’s State Grid Corporation of China (SGCC), put the country’s largest ±800 kV high voltage direct current (HVDC) line into operation. This was the first transmission line associated with the 11.2 GW Belo Monte power complex[7].
Usually, HVDC lines of 800 kV or more are commonly referred to as UHVDC (ultra-HVDC)[8]; DC = direct current.
In the United States, most long-distance transmission lines operate at 230kV, 345kV, 400kV or sometimes 500kV, where kV stands for thousand volts. In Britain, most of the National Grid operates at 275kV or 400kV23.
[1] https://www.eia.gov/beta/international/analysis.php?iso=BRA
[2] https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=39692
[3] https://www.itaipu.gov.br/en/press-office/news/itaipu-records-fourth-higher-annual-production-2018
[4] http://www.ons.org.br/paginas/sobre-o-sin/o-que-e-o-sin
[5] http://www.ons.org.br/paginas/sobre-o-sin/sistemas-isolados
[6] https://www.eia.gov/beta/international/analysis_includes/countries_long/Brazil/brazil_background.pdf
[7] https://www.globaltransmission.info/archive.php?id=32000
[8] https://www.navigantresearch.com/news-and-views/hvdc-the-future-of-long-distance-and-renewables-transmission