Founded in 1962, Eletrobras is an electric power holding company and the largest electricity generation and transmission company in Brazil. Through its subsidiaries it owns about 40% of Brazil's generation capacities and controls 69% of the National Interconnected System, corresponding to 41,621 megawatts (as of 2013).

Eletrobras operates 30 hydroelectric plants and 15 thermoelectric plants in Brazil, and has participated in scores of projects abroad. As Latin America's biggest power company it is also the tenth largest in the world. The Brazilian federal government is its majority shareholder, with 54% ownership.

Eletrobras does everything in the electricity generation business, from studying and planning power stations to building and operating them. The company's structure is unbelievably complex. It controls more than a dozen subsidiary companies which are responsible for the generation, transmission and distribution of electricity. It maintains a staggering 61,534 kilometers of transmission lines - that's 55% of Brazil's entire system.

Its subsidiary, the government-owned Eletronuclear, was established in 1997 for the sole purpose of operating Brazil's two nuclear reactors - the notorious Angra 1 and 2 - which produce just 3% of Brazil's electricity. The company is, in effect, Brazil's nuclear industry. The company is also planning to complete Angra 3, a reactor trying to rise from the dead after it was killed in the 1980s by a lack of finance. The company is also looking to build a further four reactors if Angra 3 is finished.