Parts of São Paulo are still in the dark, nearly 24 hours after rains

Fire brigades received over 200 reports of fallen trees on Monday. Photo: Marco Ambrósio/Ato Press/Folhapress

Heavy rains hit São Paulo on Monday, causing power outages that have affected parts of Brazil’s richest and most populous city for nearly 24 hours.

Winds of up to 76 kilometers per hour ripped about 200 trees from the ground and downed power lines across the city.

For São Paulo residents, the power outages are a bitter reminder of a massive blackout that hit the city just two months ago. After a massive storm, 24 percent of São Paulo’s homes were left without power — in some areas for the better part of a week.

In the wake of that episode, state lawmakers in São Paulo set up a select committee to investigate Enel, the Italian multinational power company that has been providing electricity to the city since 2018. (Enel also operates in the states of Rio de Janeiro and Ceará, with about 15 million customers in the country.)

This new outage is yet another reminder of how ill-prepared Brazil’s largest and most developed urban center is to deal with extreme climate events.

Many say the damage would be mitigated if Brazil’s power cable network were completely underground. But experts say that would be very expensive and mean higher electricity bills for consumers — something politicians are always reluctant to do (especially before a municipal election, which will be held in October).

The average number of electricity outages in Brazil has declined steadily over the past decade. In 2022, consumers experienced an average of 5.39 power cuts. The average duration of outages is also decreasing.

In São Paulo, however, the trend is mixed. The number of households experiencing outages has fallen by 11 percent since Enel took over, but supply problems take an average of 12.5 hours to resolve — more than double the time it took before 2018.