The Companhia Hidro Elétrica do São Francisco [São Francisco Hydroelectric Company] (CHESF) is an enterprise run by the Federal Government connected to the Eletrobras System, and is the largest high-voltage power generation and transmission network in the country.

It was discovered on October 4, 1501, by the travelers Américo Vespúcio and André Gonçalves. The Indigenous who inhabited the region called the river Opara, which means river-sea. It was then named São Francisco after St. Francis of Assisi, who was born in Italy 319 years before the River’s discover