Restructuring Program for the Energy Sector

The Restructuring Programme for the Energy Sector implemented by the State of São Paulo provides for the deverticalisation of the electricity and natural gas companies according to activities of generation, transmission and distribution and also a rearrangement based on their geographical location.

The new design of the energy sector of São Paulo will result in units of business which will later be transformed into subsidiaries for privatisation. The creation of those subsidiaries is intended to prevent the simple transfer of what is now a State monopoly to a private one, by putting in place mechanisms of competition and control.

Another important point of the principles of the Programme is that it will no longer be the State's job to produce and distribute energy, but it will have an enhanced role as the supervisor of the provision of public energy supply services. In that connection the present government of São Paulo has created the Public Energy Services Commission, co-ordinated by an independent and autonomous council, representative of society, responsible for gas distribution concessions and with control over the sector nearest consumers, in addition to its function of supervision of quality, tariffs and prices of the energy supplied.

by David Zylbersztajn