Minister says company will be held responsible if ONS report shows negligence at Bateias substation
The Minister of Mines and Energy, (PSD), said on this 4thª fair (October 15, 2025) that if the (National Electric System Operator) concludes that the fire in a reactor at the Bateias substation (PR) was caused by negligence, the company will be punished.
The incident forced the activation of security maneuvers and caused an outbreak in the country in the early hours of Tuesday (Oct 14).
“If failure is found due to negligence [pode haver penalidade]. It was at an Eletrobras substation that the error occurred. But the ONS is responsible for this investigation, which will naturally be done in the appropriate technical manner”he stated, in an interview with journalists at the end of the session in which he was summoned to appear at the Chamber’s Foreign Relations and National Defense committee.
The ONS must complete within 30 days, counting from October 14th, the RAP (Disruption Analysis Report), a technical document that investigates the causes, impacts and responsibilities of the blackout recorded in the early hours of the morning.
If the document identifies that the fire at the Bateias substation, operated by Eletrobras, was caused by maintenance failure or negligence, the company may be held responsible. The RAP also proposes corrective actions to prevent the problem from recurring.
UNDERSTAND THE CASE
The transmission interruption recorded in the early hours of October 14th affected all regions of Brazil. The fire reached one of the main interconnection points between the South and Southeast.
The incident generated a domino effect that required the automatic shutdown of loads in several parts of the (National Interconnected System). The aim is to prevent a wider collapse of the national electricity grid.
The event had varying durations in different regions. In some places, power was restored within minutes; in others, such as the South, the return to normality took around 2 and a half hours.
States such as São Paulo, Minas Gerais, Rio de Janeiro and Paraná were the due to interruption in transmission.
Silveira classified the blackout as a and declared that there was no failure in power generation, but rather in the transmission infrastructure.
