By Brazil Stock Guide – Brazil’s electricity regulator Aneel authorized the commercial operation of two generating units at the Manaus I thermal power plant on Tuesday, adding a combined 114.8 MW of capacity. The units began operating ahead of the original schedule, which called for commercial start-up in December 2026.
The plant will reach total installed capacity of 162.9 MW once a third unit, a 48.1 MW steam turbine, enters operation, still scheduled for December.
Manaus I was awarded a 15-year contract in Brazil’s 2022 Reserve Capacity Auction, with annual fixed revenue of R$552.8 million, expressed in September 2022 values and adjusted annually for inflation under Brazil’s benchmark IPCA consumer-price index.
The plant was contracted at the auction’s ceiling price of R$444 per MWh, with no discount. Brazil’s electricity trading chamber, CCEE, estimated the total value associated with the contract at about R$8.68 billion over its full term.
The project was initially expected to require around R$783 million in investment. By the end of 2025, however, Companhia Energética Amazonense, the project company responsible for Manaus I, had already recorded R$1.02 billion in investments.
Of that amount, approximately R$420.5 million was allocated to infrastructure and construction, while R$601.2 million went toward equipment and technology.
The financing structure includes R$499.8 million from the Amazon Development Fund, known as FDA, and another R$500 million from the Northern Constitutional Financing Fund, or FNO. Together, the two government-backed development facilities total nearly R$1 billion.
The plant is controlled by Global Participações em Energia, a privately held power company controlled by businessman Jones Aranha de Sá. At the end of 2025, Jones directly owned 47.68% of Global, while Commandery Participações held the remaining 52.32%.
The development of Manaus I helped push Global’s consolidated net financial debt from about R$560 million in 2024 to R$1.0 billion in 2025. Over the same period, consolidated net income fell to approximately R$105.6 million from R$242.5 million.
Global is already preparing another round of expansion. The group secured the 177 MW São João thermal power plant in Brazil’s 2026 capacity auction. The project, to be built in Macaé in Rio de Janeiro state, is scheduled to begin operations in August 2029.
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