Furnas (Company)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Furnas Centrais Elétricas is a major state-owned company in electricity generation and transmission business in Brazil.
FURNAS was born in the 1950s with the challenge of solving the energetic crisis that threatened the supply of the three most important Brazilian socio-economic centers-- São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, and Belo Horizonte.
The company--Central Elétrico de Furnas--was created in 1957 with the objective of building and operating on the Grande River the first major hydroelectric power station in Brazil--the Usina Hidrelétrica de Furnas, with a capacity of 1,216 MW. This dam created Furnas one of the largest artificial lakes in the world at the time. FURNAS began to function effectively in 1963 in Passos, Minas Gerais. In 1971 the headquarters was transferred to Rio de Janeiro and the company changed its name to FURNAS--Centrais Elétricas S.A., which better expresses the proposal of construction of a group of power stations.
Today, FURNAS is present in the Federal District and in the states of São Paulo, Minas Gerais, Rio de Janeiro, Espírito Santo, Goiás, Tocantins, Mato Grosso, Paraná and Rondônia. The company has a complex of ten hydroelectric power stations, besides Peixe Angical (Tocantins), under construction, totalling power of 9,467 MW. It also has 19,277.5 km. of transmission lines and 44 substations, guaranteeing the supply of electric power to a region made up of 51% of Brazilian homes and which is responsible for 65% of the gross domestic product.
