[01] Dangerous and inefficient connections

[01] Dangerous and inefficient connections

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That the community is informal does not however mean that there is no electricity grid in the area. Brazilian law number 10.438, which went into effect in April 2002, mandates that utilities cover 100 per cent of their service area. ‘The overhead lines are there, but nobody pays for a connection’, explains Garcia.

‘Households and businesses have been making their own, illegal connections to the lines, using cheap, poor quality equipment. They use all kinds of wire, basically anything they can find. The result is a chaotic tangle of poor wires going in every direction. Power outages due to short circuits are common, and it is certain that many people die from electrocution, although nobody knows the exact number of fatalities.’

Since people in the area do not pay for the electricity service, they do not manage their consumption efficiently and many of their appliances are old and poorly maintained. Consequently, electricity consumption is very high — around 325 kilowatt hours per household.