Portuguese 
Light Initiates Summer Plan Early After 117,000 Customers Lose Power Due to Transformer Theft; Will Inspect 11,600 Kilometers of Network and Prune 413,000 Trees by Year-End
The announcement was made on September 3. Initiating the plan means starting preventive work before the season when the network usually suffers.
Summer in Rio de Janeiro combines three adverse conditions for the electric system: extreme heat, which drives up air conditioning usage, storms with winds that drop branches onto the lines, and transformer overload. According to Agência iNFRA, this scenario is what the Summer Plan aims to address before it arrives.
The Number That Shouldn’t Be on the Bill
Between December 2022 and April 2023, 117,000 customers lost power due to a reason that is neither technical nor climatic: transformers burned out due to theft.
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The mechanics are known to those who operate networks in areas with illegal connections. The equipment is sized for a specific load; when dozens of irregular connections draw power from it, the actual load exceeds the design capacity, and the transformer fails.
When this happens, those who pay their bills on time are affected too. The transformer does not distinguish between regular customers and illegal connections: it simply stops functioning, leaving the entire neighborhood in the dark.
This type of loss cannot be resolved with more cables or additional teams. It is a network issue that has turned into an urban problem, and the utility operates amid it.
What’s Included in the Preventive Package
The largest component is inspections: 11,600 kilometers of distribution network will be inspected, with 56,000 services performed based on the findings.
Inspecting the network means looking for faults before they cause interruptions. This involves identifying cracked insulators, loose connections, tilted poles, and worn cables, and addressing them while the line is still operational.
The second component is pruning, and the numbers are impressive: 413,000 prunings are planned by the end of 2023. Trees touching cables are a classic cause of outages during storms, as even a gust of wind can cause a short circuit.
There is an interesting operational detail regarding this item. In partnership with Comlurb, 315 trees have already been pruned while the lines remain energized, a technique that avoids shutting off the section for maintenance.
The third component is automation. 247 telecommand protection devices have been installed, allowing a defective section to be isolated remotely, without waiting for a team to arrive on-site.
People on the Streets When Problems Arise
Prevention does not eliminate occurrences. Therefore, the company also focuses on response capacity and informs that it can increase the number of mobilized professionals by up to four times throughout the day during periods of high demand.
The operation is coordinated by three centers: the Integrated Operations Center, the Rio Operations Center, and the CICC. It is from there that decisions are made regarding which team to dispatch first when ten neighborhoods report issues simultaneously.
This prioritization is the aspect that the customer does not see and that defines the perception of service. Restoring power to a feeder that serves a hospital and thousands of homes takes precedence over resolving an isolated branch, even if the complaint about the branch was received first.
It is worth noting that El Niño serves as a well-known aggravating factor here and not as a surprise. The phenomenon alters rainfall and temperature patterns, and in the Southeast, it typically translates to more intense heat and concentrated storms.
Anticipating the plan is to acknowledge that the preparation window has shrunk. If summer arrives hotter and earlier, pruning done in November may already be too late.
I can only wonder how much of this 413,000 branch cuts will actually happen by December, because pruning depends on authorization, access to the tree, and trained crews to work near the power lines. This number only means something if it is fulfilled.
The real test comes in January during the first strong storm when temperatures reach forty degrees Celsius. It is then that we will see if the preventive inspection was worthwhile.
It is important to understand why Light’s concession area is particularly difficult to operate. It covers the city of Rio de Janeiro and neighboring municipalities, with an extremely high population density and areas of irregular occupation where the network coexists with improvised construction.
In this environment, preventive maintenance faces an obstacle that does not appear in technical manuals: access. There are regions where teams can only enter with prior agreements, and there are days when they simply cannot enter at all.
Moreover, the topography adds to the challenges. A network that climbs hills, crosses dense vegetation, and descends slopes is much more exposed to falling branches and landslides than one on flat terrain.
This is why the number of prunings is so impressive. Four hundred and thirteen thousand interventions imply a daily, continuous operation, with a dedicated team solely for this purpose over several months.
This is not a task that can be solved by a community effort.
There is also the regulatory component. The distributor is responsible for continuity indicators monitored by ANEEL, and exceeding limits results in automatic compensation on the bill for affected customers, as well as penalties. Thus, summer preparation is also a matter of financial risk management.
Additionally, it is worth noting that prevention and repair compete for the same team. As the company mobilizes personnel to inspect the network and prune trees, it must maintain a contingent available to handle emergency incidents.
Therefore, anticipating the plan has a concrete operational advantage: performing preventive work before the critical season prevents the two demands from colliding in January.
However, none of this addresses the root cause of the 117,000 customers affected last summer. Transformer theft is a public safety issue as much as an electricity network problem, and thus remains beyond the reach of any maintenance plan, no matter how well executed.
Did you experience a power outage last summer? How long did it take for the electricity to return in your neighborhood?
