In 2024, the EDP had a radical idea for one of Brazil’s favelas. Here’s how their work contributed to transforming one community, and in doing so, drew a blueprint for fighting poverty with clean energy worldwide.
Brazil’s Favela dos Sonhos (the Community of Dreams) did not always have its hopeful name, or a promising future.
Once known as Boca do Sapo (Frog’s Mouth), the community faced high unemployment, poor infrastructure, and limited access to services. Beneath it all lay deep energy poverty, weaving a web of challenges that socially excluded its residents, limiting their daily lives and aspirations.
But today, thanks to the hard work of Gerando Falcões, a leading NGO of the community, partners across various sectors and a bold idea from clean energy giant EDP, the community has become a living example of the immense power of lighting up a neighborhood with renewable energy.
Energy poverty is a systemic problem that has profound impacts on individual people. Single mother Carliene couldn’t walk home at night, with no street lights to cut through the pitch-black darkness. Shop owner Tailane struggled with high energy bills and risky electric wiring. As local teacher Fabíola explained, in Boca do Sapo, “It’s normal for you not to have flooring, it’s normal not to have power, it’s normal to eat the same thing, for you not to have opportunities.”
This was a reality that EDP wanted to change, working through its social investment arm, the EDP Institute. “The idea of a fair energy transition is to leave nobody behind,” emphasized Marcela Almeida, a Manager at the Institute.
At first glance, providing access to energy might appear to be a straightforward task: a matter of fixing faulty wiring or installing generators. However, a closer assessment of the favela quickly revealed that the task would be more complex.
Buildings in the favela were tightly packed together, irregularly spread and constructed of wood, making them too fragile or too constricted to support solar panels, much less a new power plant. EDP was limited in building new power centers or installing new technology.
But Brazil’s decentralized energy system, which allows remote power plants to power distant areas, provided a unique opportunity. Using a 75 kW micro solar plant that sat 100 km away, EDP realized they could channel renewable power into the favela’s existing grid, at no cost to residents. The project could lower residents’ electricity bills by delivering solar energy through a crediting system, making clean power accessible without any upfront costs and giving beneficiaries immediate savings to put towards food, healthcare or education. The most exciting part of the idea? If it was successful, Favela dos Sonhos would be only the beginning: the project would be a template that could be replicated in communities nationwide.
Building an energy network calls for more than circuit breakers and power lines. It needs outreach to spread the word, strong community trust to encourage people to participate, legal knowledge to stay compliant and a crew of volunteers to put in the hefty number of hours all the work required.
Here, EDP partnered with four local organizations to rally the muscle they needed. Gerando Falcões, a leading NGO who had pioneered work in favela, mobilized the community and coordinated enrollment. UltraGaz, another energy firm, managed distribution of monthly solar bill credits: talking to families, digitizing contracts and more. Major law firm Demarest provided legal expertise for the groundbreaking contracts that allowed the project to deliver free energy. Glorium managed the crucial and thorny details of tax compliance. Together, these groups navigated regulatory complexities, on-the-ground digital challenges, and the demands of building a model that could serve vulnerable families at scale.
“I can’t even count how many hours they [worked on] it and they were very engaged in creating this new solution, going to the community, talking to the technical teams in EDP,” said Marcela, “It wouldn’t be possible to create such a complex solution without the partnerships.”
Another pillar of the program’s success was working in coordination with the community members themselves. With the program and the structure so new, it would be easy to dismiss and mistrust. The EDP team understood the importance of earning the community’s buy-in, and spent half a year evangelizing their work: broadcasting information over radio, hosting sessions in-person to answer questions and using WhatsApp for direct contact. From explaining bill statements to answering questions about fluctuating solar credits, community outreach was as fundamental as the renewable energy plant itself.
The project was remarkable on its own. The results, even more so.
Since its launch, nearly 200 families have benefitted from solar credits in the favela, saving their households 50 reais per month each: that’s a collective 120,000 reais in under a year. For residents in the favela, every reais saved represented another freedom and choice: to buy more nutritious food, to seek needed medical care, or to invest in education. As one part of wider work in the favela, residents are seeing their lives slowly transform, with better access to training, lower unemployment and more reliable services.
But much more than a standalone success story, Favela dos Sonhos demonstrates how a community-focused, cross-sector approach can overcome deep logistical, cultural, and structural barriers. EDP’s work proves that renewable energy projects can catalyze profound change in the places that need them most. At its heart, what the Favela do Sonhos project shows is a radical and once-in-a-generation opportunity: to leapfrog a stage of development and combat both energy poverty while meeting sustainability goals.
Communities across the globe feel the sharp bite of energy poverty, from Latin America to Europe to Africa to Asia. The success of the Favela do Sonhos lights the way for these countless communities and their people – people like Carliene, Tailane and Fabíola – to pursue their own dreams through clean energy, dignity, and opportunity.
