Building on last week's state request for intervention amid blackouts, federal Minister Alexandre Silveira, Governor Tarcísio de Freitas, and Mayor Ricardo Nunes will formalize a caducidade request to Aneel by Wednesday, amid unified dissatisfaction with Enel's service failures.
Following the São Paulo state government's December 15 demand for federal intervention—cited in prior coverage amid lingering outages affecting ~95,000 properties after cyclone blackouts—the crisis has escalated with rare political alignment across federal, state, and municipal levels against Enel.
President Lula, Governor Tarcísio de Freitas, and Mayor Ricardo Nunes converged on the issue during the SBT News inauguration on Friday (12), pressing for action on power shortages. In a subsequent meeting at Palácio dos Bandeirantes, Minister of Mines and Energy Alexandre Silveira agreed to initiate the caducidade process, emphasizing Lula's role, with a formal joint request to Aneel planned by Wednesday (17)—though the mayor's legal standing is limited.
Aneel's caducidade process, paused until February but now poised to resume in January due to this pressure, faces hurdles: a technical opinion favoring Enel's continuation could spark lawsuits. Federal lawyers are weighing continuation or a new process (taking ~6 months). The move aims to force Enel to sell, akin to Amazonas Energia's 2023 transfer to Âmbar Energia after outages. Interested parties include Equatorial, Neoenergia, and Copel. Caducidade, per the Concessions Law, demands proof of grave breaches, offers company defenses and indemnity, and may take a year. Enel's contract (from Eletropaulo, 1998) ends in 2028; Aneel has pursued it before (CEA 2007, Amazonas 2023).
