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Brazil Energy Regulator to Recommend Ending Enel SP Power Distribution Contract

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Brazil's National Electric Energy Agency, or Aneel, will persist with a recommendation to the country's energy ministry that Enel Sao Paulo's rights to distribute power be ended despite objections from the company, it said in a statement on Tuesday.

The case has been ongoing since April when Aneel found that Enel SP, a subsidiary of Italy's Enel, had not rectified faults and violations related to the restoration of energy supply following power cuts, specifically in emergency situations.

The utility's performance was unsatisfactory and inferior to other power distributors during extreme weather events from 2023-2025, leaving millions of consumers in 24 municipalities of Sao Paulo state without power for extended periods.

In a statement emailed to, Enel SP said that it disagreed with Aneel's arguments and its evaluation of the company's performance in serving its 8.5 million customers, based on the most extreme climatic event recorded in its concession area.

It said it would strive to demonstrate before the authorities that it had raised service standards and that it had met targets set out in an improvement plan established in 2024.

Enel said Aneel's analysis was narrowly based on a single event in December 2025 and did not reflect continual improvements the company had achieved over the last two and a half years.

The regulator did not accept the utility's arguments heard during deliberations in April and Aneel's director pointed out that during the event last December, a cyclone, Enel SP's response was plagued by the very problems Aneel had identified previously.

Enel SP said Aneel's evaluation was unfair in its methodology and quantification of power outages, which Aneel did not accept, reiterating that different indicators were included and pointed to unsatisfactory performance.

Aneel has given Enel 10 days starting from last Friday, to provide its final arguments before a further deliberation by the agency while a final decision to end the contract will be made with the Ministry of Mines and Energy, the regulator's statement said.

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