Electrification in Remote Regions: An Analysis of the More Light for Amazonia Program

1. Introduction

The introduction should briefly place the study in a broad context and highlight why it is important. It should define the purpose of the work and its significance. The current state of the research field should be carefully reviewed and key publications cited. Please highlight controversial and diverging hypotheses when necessary. Finally, briefly mention the main aim of the work and highlight the principal conclusions. As far as possible, please keep the introduction comprehensible to scientists outside your particular field of research. References should be numbered in order of appearance and indicated by a numeral or numerals in square brackets—e.g., [1] or [2,3], or [4,5,6]. See the end of the document for further details on references.

The electric power universalization program in Brazil is a project started in 2003 by the federal government aiming to offer the benefit of electric power to the whole country through the use of the electric grid. So far, the project has resulted in an improvement in people’s quality of life, mainly in the municipalities that joined the initiative.

However, the universalization of electric power in Brazil is still an incipient process, and the problems related to electric infrastructure are some of the main obstacles to the success of the project. In the Amazon region, there are still great difficulties in connecting the population to the electric grid, a possible explanation are the specificities of these regions that include great distances to consumer centers, logistical difficulties, and high installation costs [1]. Factors such as low demographic density and the dispersion of population in the rural area of the Amazon make access to energy difficult and expensive [2].

This scenario leads to low profitability of productive activity and causes serious economic difficulties for the inhabitants of the interior, who remain in poverty and social exclusion.

Given this problem, the federal government created the More Light for the Amazon Program (MLA) aiming to promote access to electric energy for the Brazilian population located in the remote regions of the states of the Legal Amazon, aiming at the social and economic development of these communities [3]. To achieve its goals and maximize the use of public resources, the Program provides for the use of renewable technology, as well as decentralized generation systems with or without associated networks [4].

The financing for the program’s actions will be provided by resources from private investors, financial resources from the federal government and the states, as well as international funding sources. The federal government will be able to select companies for the execution of electric energy projects in the communities, through public bids. In the Brazil the distribution of the Program’s resources is based mainly on the need to mitigate the tariff impacts of the various concession and license areas, regional shortages, and the financial counterpart offered by the Executing Agents[4].

However, the first steps taken towards the Program show that, at least for now, it is limited, in practice, to providing electricity for the minimum needs of the communities, restricted to domestic use [5,6]. When acting via concessions, the federal government uses a partnership model between public and private sectors that allows the management of services, works or public assets for long-term contracts [7,8]. However, the concession of public utility services to private companies, which are the concessionaires of the services, guide the provision of the service by the goal of maximizing profits, unlike the social objectives [9,10].

Although concessions are widely used in developed countries to manage infrastructure projects, public services, and even as a means to stimulate innovation, concessions have also been criticized by those who consider that this form of partnership has not been beneficial to the population. For example, some critics argue that concessions do not generate the expected results and may increase inequality between richer and poorer regions [11,12]. Overall, concessions are a public-private partnership model that can bring significant benefits to society.

It is also important to highlight the risks that concessions can bring, such as lack of transparency in project management and increased inequality between richer and poorer regions. In this sense, the objective of this paper is to conduct an analysis of the Federal Government’s More Light for the Amazon Program (MLA) to identify what is the role of each of the parties involved in the concession process and the limitations faced for the success of the program.

Doing this policy analysis is important to understand what the benefits and possible risks of implementing this type of policy are, so policy analyses are fundamental to understanding the benefits and risks involved in the granting process. They allow us to identify what are the roles of each party involved in the process and what are the constraints faced in making the program successful. Thus, this analysis is essential for the concessioning of public services to be carried out in a transparent, efficient and equitable manner.

Given the social inequalities present in the country, the government must seek ways to mitigate these differences and provide better living conditions for society. Points out that such measures occur through policies and programs that, in addition to fighting such disparities, also help boost the development of those who are socially more vulnerable[13]. But the privatization process of the Brazilian electricity sector, occurred from the 1990s, a preponderant factor for the increase in inequality of access to electricity supply between urban and rural areas [13]. That is, among the aspects linked to development, visible in urban areas and lacking in rural areas, is access to electricity.

2. Theoretical framework

Rural electrification in Brazil has a long history of social exclusion and that all the existing obstacles resulted from the lack of an effective political will to implement the necessary measures. The idea that rural services should not impose limits only emerged in the 1990s with the breaking of some paradigms [14].

At the end of this decade was established the National Program of Rural Electrification "Luz no Campo" by the decree of December 2, 1999, aiming to promote the improvement of socioeconomic conditions of rural areas in the country [15]. However, some obstacles, such as the resistance of concessionaires, permissionaires and rural electrification cooperatives, and the cost of financial participation by the rural consumer (because this Program was not totally free for the consumer), should be overcome for the implementation of this policy [14].

In 2003, armed with existing knowledge and demonstrating political will to put into practice what was already being discussed among specialists on the subject, the National Program for Universalization of Access and Use of Electricity - "Light for All" - LPT was instituted to anticipate the universalization of access in rural households and establishments. In just over six years the program has connected more than two million and one hundred thousand households, many of which could be served otherwise, since more than 60% of these services were in families with family income below one minimum wage [14].

In the urban area, all distributors in the country are universalized. In the rural area, 87 distributors have already completed universalization, while continue to execute their Universalization Plans [16]. The case of the Light for All Program (LPT) is a clear state effort to ensure rural electrification in regions that lacked electric light, therefore, modern means of communication, fundamental presently of social and economic inclusion.

Even with an undeniable advance provided by the LPT there were still communities, located mainly in areas more distant from the distribution networks, which did not have access to electricity service. In this scenario, the public policies developed from the Light for All program were fundamental for the universalization of access to electricity.

Public policy can be summarized as the field of knowledge that seeks, simultaneously, "to put the government into action" and/or analyze this action and, when necessary, propose changes in the course or direction of these [11,17]. The coordination of public policies in Brazil began in the Vargas Era, mainly aiming at urbanization through the construction of state companies that would provide inputs for urbanization and industrialization. Thus, it is observed in this period that the State was a producer of goods and services.

Faced with a scenario of great changes, the Brazilian state ceased to be an interventionist state and sponsor of social welfare and adopted a posture known as managerial public administration. This action would open space for a greater participation of private activity, through privatization processes or concessions, in the field of social welfare and economic activity. It was then sought to implement the minimal state, transferring social and economic activities to private activity, assuming the role of regulatory agent [18].

In concessions a contract is signed between the government (Granting Authority) and a private company (Concessionaire), in which the former delegates to the latter the responsibility for managing a good or service, which was previously under its responsibility. From this contract on, the private company assumes certain risks of the Concession, being involved in all aspects related to the operation and maintenance agreed upon [19]. With the advent of the concession processes there is a greater need to coordinate, supervise and regulate the various interests expressed in the processes, so the government is a coordinating agent, having to stimulate and control the actions done on behalf of the state.

Characterizes the national electricity sector as strategic both for economic and social development, induced by the State, and for the inclusion of popular layers in the dynamics of Brazilian industrial society through the adoption of public policies [2,20]. However, among the materials analyzed to prepare this study, it is possible to observe that before the State intervened in the universalization of electric power, especially in rural areas, there was no interest on the part of the concessionaires to serve the population in more distant points. This scenario had a major change when the Light for All Programs established new technical criteria of service for the concessionaires and permissionaires, which ensured the inclusion of millions of Brazilians, historically placed on the margins of the electricity system, and represented a breakthrough in relations between utilities and consumers [14].

Although electrification programs have many advantages, this alone is not enough to determine rural development, since the success of the development process in the countryside will depend on a set of integrated actions, which involves the implementation of programs in the areas of health, education, and transportation, among others[2,5,21]. Furthermore, the energy concessionaires do not see rural electrification as an attractive business, because the tariffs are subsidized and some regions of the country no longer demand greater investments in this sector. Therefore, it is necessary to reconcile the interests of federal, state and municipal governments and companies in the electrical sector, making resources available as a source of incentive, thus ensuring the necessary investments for the implementation of rural networks [5,22,23,24].

In this context, public concession in electrification services is a way to ensure the quality, safety and reliability of the supply of electricity to the populations. It is a strategy adopted by many governments to increase the supply of affordable and reliable electricity services. Public concession involves the granting of concessions to private companies as part of a bidding process.

However, this concession can generate several problems, such as lack of adequate investment in the infrastructure necessary for the service, increase in service costs due to increased demand, infrastructure maintenance problems due to lack of financial resources, and lack of transparency in service management [5,14]. In addition, public concession can also lead to inequality in the quality of services provided, increased prices for services, and loss of public control over service provision.

In this context, Public Policy Analysis provides a way to understand choices, processes, and their consequences [7,11]. First, this interdisciplinary approach, which ranges from economics and public administration, to sociology and philosophy, allows public managers and other stakeholders involved in policymaking to analyze the safety, effectiveness and efficiency of public policies, in order to ensure the achievement of the established objectives and compliance with the general principles of public administration [23]. This tool is important to help public managers identify the problems faced, find effective solutions to solve them, implement, monitor public policies and evaluate changes in political, economic and social contexts. Through public policy analysis, public managers can delve deeper into analyzing and understanding how public policies affect people’s lives.

It is a tool that can help public managers identify problems, assess the costs and benefits of public policies, identify key barriers to success, and set short- and long-term goals for implementing public policies. In addition, public policy analysis enables public managers to better understand the impact of policies in terms of cost, time, and outcomes, helping to ensure that policies are implemented more effectively and transparently.

3. Materials and Methods

The study is a Descriptive research study. The descriptive approach is used to describe or explain a problem, or situation. The goal of descriptive research is to provide a more detailed description of a phenomenon or viewpoint, rather than to analyze or explain its causes. This approach involves the collection of qualitative data, such as interviews, questionnaires, observation, and document analysis.

To study the selected documents there was the application of content analysis technical procedures. a group of communication analysis approaches with the goal of obtaining, using methodical and objective procedures to describe the messages’ content, indications (quantitative or not) that permit the inference of knowledge about the circumstances surrounding their generation and reception (also known as inferred variables) [25,26].

The material analyzed is from a documental source, which was materialized through official public documents, such as the programs’ operationalization manual, monitoring reports and other materials disclosed by the companies on the theme. The documents studied were: the decree No. 10,221, of February 5, 2020 that institutes the More Light for the Amazon program, in view of the provisions of art. 13, item I, of Law No. 10,438, of April 26, 2002 [4] of promoting the universalization of the electric power service throughout the national territory.

In addition, the Program Operationalization Manual was analyzed, which defines the Operational Structure and establishes the Technical and Financial Criteria, Procedures and Priorities that will be applied in the Program [3]; Terms of Commitment between service providers and the Ministry of Mines and Energy [27], made available when monitoring services in the states. In addition to journalistic materials , notes from the utilities , scientific articles that address the theme and support the information presented.

The data were analyzed and interpreted with the help of the software IRAMUTEQ (Interface de R pour les Analyses Multidimensionnelles de Textes et de Questionnaires). The software performs the analysis from the linguistic characteristics of a text aiming to identify the frequency of words, grammatical forms, vocabulary used, etc., in order to identify from the correlation structure between the words and the explanatory context that appears in the text [28,29].

The method used to capture the correlation structure was the Correspondence Factor Analysis (CFA), which allows us to identify the degree of association between large sets of words and the explanatory context [30]. As well as facilitating the counting via word cloud and the structure of interconnection through similarity analysis. The word cloud groups and organizes them graphically according to their frequency, enabling quick identification of the key words in an analyzed corpus [31].

Similarity analysis is based on graph theory and allows the identification of co- occurrences between words, resulting in indications of connectedness between terms [32] in order to support the following discussions.

5. Conclusions

This research aimed to analyze the More Light Program for the Amazon in order to identify the role of each of the parties involved in the concession process (Government and private companies) and the limitations faced for the success of the program. Through the information presented, we conclude that the government assumes a central role as the agent that induces public policies. It must define and delimit the activities to be developed by the concessionaire, establish quality standards and prices, supervise the fulfillment of contracts, inspect the fulfillment of users’ rights and guarantee the transparency of the processes.

To do this, it faces financial challenges, as the program is financed by state resources, as well as difficulties in establishing an effective concession system to ensure that the projects are carried out safely, efficiently and in compliance with legal requirements. In addition, measures also need to be taken to prevent and control corruption and fraud in the granting of these projects. Finally, there is also a challenge of implementation, caused by delays in the processes and distance from the communities to be served. The role of the utilities is to supply energy to the communities, to maintain the installed systems, and to provide information and guidance on the correct use of the equipment.

This study contributes to an understanding of the importance of public policies aimed at families found in situations of exclusion and without access to products/services essential to social welfare. In addition, it demonstrates the importance of public managers being equipped with information before implementing public policies.

Difficulties were encountered regarding more in-depth information about the program, the way it operates and the dissemination of data through the utilities and official government websites. In this way, it becomes opportune to carry out studies and consultations regarding the viability of operation and maintenance of the energy generation systems by the communities benefited by it.

This section is not mandatory but can be added to the manuscript if the discussion is unusually long or complex.