The 2020 Power Blackout in the Brazilian State of Amapá: Lessons Learned and Opportunities

The Brazilian state of Amapa=-notable for having 70% of its area consisting of unexplored Amazonian forests-experienced a massive power blackout in November 2020. An internal short-circuit in a transformer led to an explosion followed by a fire at the Macapa substation. This event left about 90% of the Amapa's population without power for several days in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic, disrupting the lives of hundreds of thousands of people and raising concerns from several electricity sector stakeholders. This paper discusses select lessons learned from the power blackout and presents future opportunities to improve power system reliability and resilience for the grids in Amapá, and other similar Brazilian states, with a special focus on the increasingly important role of of distributed energy resources and smart grid technologies.