Dinamizando a economia local com o acesso à energia elétrica: os Centros Comunitários de Produção como alternativa para potencializar os resultados do Programa Luz para Todos

Abstract

Throughout History, electricity has proven to be an important vector for development. In general, national Human Development Indexes – HDIs have evolved in straight correlation with the country’s per capita consumption of electric energy. In line with this inference, Brazil set a legal framework that requires universal access to electric energy. Such universal access still hasn’t been reached though, in spite of successive rural electrification programs in the past and the LUZ PARA TODOS (LIGHT FOR ALL), in course since 2003. In the wake of these programs, as a strategy to effectively turn energy into a vector for development, ELETROBRAS conceived the implementation of community projects to benefit the production of communities that receive electrification and demonstrate vocation to a given economic activity, thus fostering the local economy. These projects were named Community Centers for Production – CCPs, which have been implemented in rural Brazil with the support of ELETROBRAS or the MINISTRY OF MINES AND ENERGY itself. However, the number of implemented CCPs still falls short of Brazil’s needs, and, judging by the CCP cases addressed in this study, the consolidation of a specific program to better explore the productive potential of Brazilian rural communities is well deserved. Currently, the biggest challenge is delivering electrification to communities in remote regions, which cannot be connected to conventional power grids. In these locations, electrification must be done mainly with photovoltaic systems, which are substantially more expensive. As it happens in regions electrified with conventional power grids, electrification may offer Brazilians living along rivers and in remote regions not only access to the comforts of lighting and refrigerating food, but also a sustainable way of generating income and/or promoting their own food security. Among the challenges to the implementation of CCPs in rural Brazil and especially in remote regions, we highlight the elaboration of projects, and the lack of regular financing to fund equipments that could benefit the local production. As alternative, we point out possible institutional arrangements with agents of complementary vocations, organized with the Avant-garde Entities developed by the Alberto Luiz Coimbra Post-graduation and Research Institute in Engineering – COPPE, using regulatory resources already available in the electricity sector that nowadays are exclusively destined to R&D projects. For CCPs in remote regions of northern Brazil, the Amazon Fund, run by the National Social and Economic Development Bank – BNDES, could also be used