Can football cause power problems?

Every time the FIFA World Cup and other major sporting events like it are held, there is speculation whether the additional power demand from millions of television sets being turned on for key soccer matches will trigger blackouts.

This time round there is a bigger than usual risk of this happening. Brazil is suffering from one of the worst droughts in decades, and the toll this has taken on hydropower generation is straining the country’s electricity supply. Hydropower provides more than two thirds of Brazil’s power supply, and the drought has resulted in low water levels at the reservoirs used to turn the generators that make electricity.