MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Power failure leaves 13 Brazilian states in the dark; third major outage in 3 years

The Itaipú complex shared with Paraguay supplies 25% of the Brazilian consumption

A failure affecting four transmission lines left four Brazilian regions (thirteen states) partially without electricity on Friday, highlighting the growing strain on the nation's power infrastructure.

The problem also hampered power generation at hydroelectric dam Itaipu, the world’s largest in operation, the National Electricity System Operator said in a statement.

The outage affected all ten states in Brazil's southern and south-eastern regions and another three in the North and the Midwest, the agency, known as ONS, said. An estimated 5.700 megawatts of energy were lost as a result of the outage, it added.

Most power service was restored in just over an hour. An estimated 200.000 households in Sao Paulo and 325.000 in Rio do Janeiro suffered the consequences of the blackout.

Infrastructure bottlenecks, including limited airport capacity and lack of adequate road networks, have become an increasing concern as Brazil's economy grows rapidly and the country prepares to host the 2014 World Cup soccer championship and the 2016 Olympics.

The failure in late 2009 of a transmission line linking Itaipu to the rest of the electrical grid left more than half of Brazil's states without power for about 12 hours and renewed attention on the need for greater investment.

In February, a similar problem also left eight north-eastern states with no electricity for almost a day.

The Itaipú complex which is shared with neighbouring Paraguay supplies over 25% of Brazil’s power. Paraguay complains Brazil which absorbs most of the power generated does not pay market prices for the electricity, but rather what was established in the construction contract dating back to the early seventies.