Faced with the threat of losing the contract in , sent a message to the 94 state deputies to provide information about its activities in the capital and show a letter sent to the Ministry of Mines and Energy demanding flexibility from the São Paulo City Council in relation to tree pruning.
The concessionaire sent, on Wednesday (17), an email to the 94 deputies with the title “Enel Clarifications on Climate Events in São Paulo”, in which it commits to hiring 1,600 professionals by 2027 and defends.
The message was sent one day after the Minister of Mines and Energy, (PSD), announced that he would start the process in São Paulo. The announcement was made alongside the mayor () and the governor (Republicans) after a blackout on December 10 left more than 2 million properties without electricity.
To the ministry, Enel stated that it had issued more than 15 thousand reports on the risk of falling trees in São Paulo and shared the data with the City Hall and the Secretariat of Subprefectures. Of the total, according to the company, only 74 trees would have been cut.
Enel is responsible for pruning the trees that pass through the electrical wiring, due to the risk of shock, while the management of the others is the responsibility of the City Hall. The company and the Nunes management are stuck in the midst of energy shortage crises, with each holding the other responsible for the actions that must be adopted.
City Hall accuses the company of having to prune trees – which it claims has carried out around 230,000 of the 282,000 cuts promised.
“It is worth noting that in the last weather event of December/25, 145 fallen trees were identified and examined in the network, a historic record, corresponding to 21% of the total number of trees fallen in the 15 months of the project. Of the 145 trees, 62 were on the opposite side of the street where the electricity network is located”, says an excerpt from the letter sent by Enel.
In the message sent to the ministry – and also to deputies –, the concessionaire requests that City Hall be quick to analyze the reports on the trees.
The Municipal Secretariat of Subprefectures claims that the documents shared by Enel do not follow the technical standard required by municipal legislation and that there is incorrect information in the texts. Furthermore, it states that in a meeting with the concessionaire, it was agreed that there was a need to remove only 25 trees.
“As a result of the strong winds on 12/10, São Paulo City Hall recorded 438 tree falls. Of this amount, only 3 were listed by Enel as a risk of falling. In other words, if the Secretariat of Subprefectures had removed the 15 thousand trees indicated by Enel, the number of falls would have been 435, still characterizing an extreme weather event”, the ministry told the report.
Alesp approved in 1996, during the Mário Covas (PSDB) administration, a privatization plan for several companies, including Eletropaulo, focused on electrical energy. The privatization was completed three years later and Enel took over the concession in 2018.
Enel has already been the target of a CPI within Alesp itself, which suffered from power outages on several occasions – one of the power outages in the legislative house occurred from the company to the commission, in 2023.
“The CPI identified structural flaws in the concessionaire’s management, such as a reduction in operational staff, lack of preventive maintenance, logistical problems, failures in communication with consumers and the absence of an effective reimbursement plan. These problems cause predictable weather events to turn into prolonged crises,” deputy Thiago Auricchio (PL), who proposed and chaired Enel’s CPI, told the Panel.
“The announced investments need to be analyzed in light of the results delivered to the population, which continues to face blackouts, delays in restoring service and non-compliance with court decisions. Formal compliance with indicators does not replace the real quality of the service”, added the deputy.
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