“This is not the time to celebrate”, says an expert on reservoir levels

The water reservoirs of the Southeast and Midwest systems operate with 20% of the volume. However, Roberto Kishinami, coordinator of iCS (Instituto Clima e Sociedade), says in an interview with CNN, which is not yet time to celebrate. “It’s good that the rainy season has arrived, but we need to understand what will happen by the end of April.” It takes about five to six months to fill up enough to spend the dry period in Brazil.

Another danger on the Brazilian horizon is the La Niña weather event. “The systems indicate that it will be at a moderate level, but the days that the event takes place tend to have little rain and, consequently, reduce the daily supply to the reservoirs”, says Kishinami. At this time, levels have grown less than 1% a day.

Agro x energy

The Brazilian economy entered a technical recession, registering contraction in the third quarter for the second time in a row, with losses in agriculture and exports overshadowing gains in services, in a scenario of high inflation and rising interest rates in the country and despite the advance of vaccination against Covid-19.

Brazil’s Gross Domestic Product dropped 0.1% between July and September, informed the IBGE (Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics).

On the production side, Agriculture was the negative highlight in the economy in the third quarter, with a drop of 8.0% over the previous three months, as a result of the end of the soybean harvest, which also ended up impacting exports.

“As a way out, we should take more prudent measures, increasing the contracting of renewable energy”, believes the iCS coordinator. “Even more than [as renováveis] are favorable for a better climate in the future”.

*Updating and with Reuters