The National Electricity Company

Abstract

Law n.° 2002, of 26^th December 1944, concerning electricity supplies in Portugal, translated into law a definite decision that had been taken on this subject. Portugal's main source of energy, it had been decided, would be electricity produced from the power of the rivers of the country. Furthermore, the law defined the general features of the national electrification process. For the organization of the primary electricity grid, it defined an entrepreneurial and mixed economy solution. In this framework, at the end of 1945 the first two large generating companies were established: Hidroeléctrica do Cávado, and Hidroeléctrica do Zêzere. In 1947 the National Electricity Company (CNE) was set up, with responsibility for distribution. It received the «concession for the establishment and operation of power lines and substations that will link the Zêzere and Cávado systems [...]». Five years later the company set up in 1947 was formally inaugurated - on the 12^th July 1952, with the engineer J. N. Ferreira Dias Jr. as president. A decade later more than three-quarters of all the electricity produced in Portugal passed through its transmission lines, a figure that shows how important it was for the country.