Brazil's Light Advances 2026/27 Summer Plan Ahead of Schedule, Maintenance Up 45%
en.Wedoany.com Reported - Brazilian power distributor Light has strengthened its operations for the coming months, focusing on preventing and mitigating the impact of extreme weather events on electricity supply. Given that the El Niño phenomenon is expected to bring more severe climate conditions, the company has brought forward its 2026/2027 Summer Plan (Plano Verão 2026/2027) to prepare the grid for heavy rainfall, heatwaves, and strong winds. Measures under the plan include carrying out preventive maintenance ahead of schedule, enhancing meteorological monitoring, and expanding the operational structure to improve response capacity to unexpected incidents. Light stated that preventive maintenance workload has increased by an average of 45% compared to the previous year.
Specific maintenance operations include inspecting 11,600 km of distribution lines, performing 56,000 grid operations, and installing 247 new remote-controlled protection devices. These devices can automatically restore the system under certain fault conditions, thereby shortening power outage durations.
To strengthen emergency response, Light has added technical staff to its Integrated Operations Center (COI, Centro de Operação Integrado) for real-time monitoring and intervention in power system operations, while also expanding field crews; the number of professionals that can be mobilized on high-fault days can be expanded by up to four times. Dedicated teams are also maintained at the Rio Operations Center (COR, Centro de Operações Rio) and the Integrated Command and Control Center (CICC, Centro Integrado de Comando e Controle). During a meeting with the media on the 3rd, Light's Director of Integrated Operations, João Paulo Parreira, noted that the company has also increased generator availability through contracted companies to enhance fault response capabilities and provide support to critical services such as hospitals and health clinics.
Tree pruning is another key focus of the plan. By the end of this year, Light plans to complete 413,000 tree branch pruning operations around the grid, an increase of approximately 13% compared to 364,000 last year. In January, the company partnered with Comlurb to prune trees near the grid without interrupting power supply, prioritizing high-risk trees that directly threaten the grid; 315 trees have so far been pruned under live-line working conditions.
Regarding electricity theft, Light estimates that 36 out of every 100 regular customers in its concession area are affected by power theft, which causes losses of approximately R$1.3 billion per year, with an average of 4 incidents occurring daily. Illegal connections also cause transformer overloads, interrupting supply and affecting service quality. Between December 2025 and April 2026, the company recorded 1,102 transformers burned out due to overloads caused by power theft, with related outages affecting 117,000 customers.
