← Grupo Aprecisa · Connecting those who know with those who needThe specialist
Knows what happens within a millisecond: the 50 Hz frequency, the inertia of the machines, the voltage, the communications that hold the grid together.
For example: “Tensão, não adjetivos” and “A Malha Nervosa”.
Gaspar do Amaral
Connecting the detail to the system, and the system to each person.
Neither only a specialist nor only a generalist: a Nexist. The work done here is the nexus: going down to the millisecond in which the power grid holds steady, rising to the world map where the price of energy is decided, and coming back to each person with an explanation they can follow, at the level of their mathematics and of their moment in life.
“Where did the electricity I used yesterday come from?”Painel 50 HzThe electricity of Portugal and Europe, hour by hour since 2015.
“Does what happens in Hormuz reach my table?”Painel A Porta EstreitaThe ships, the oil, the fertiliser, the cereals and the food, every day.
This page is a translation. The articles, the two panels and the full CV are in Portuguese.
Specialist, Generalist, and the Nexist that Gaspar do Amaral is between the two
The specialist sees deep and narrow; the generalist sees wide and on the surface. The Nexist sees both at the same time and applies each one to the case in hand, because that is the only way to understand complex systems, such as the power grid of a country. That is the work of Gaspar do Amaral.
The generalist
Sees what links energy to communications, sovereignty, cybersecurity, justice, housing and the household budget of every family.
The articles are organised by area of knowledge.
The Nexist
Gaspar do Amaral brings the two together in each case: the same yardstick for every technology, the total cost of the system and the question that always remains: who pays, and who keeps the grid standing when there is no wind and no sun?
For example: “O barril de 200 quilos” and the proposed Lei REI, an energy responsibility law, in “Evitar o Silêncio Sistémico”.
Energy · the “50 Hz — O Custo Total do Sistema” newsletter
Why Hormuz matters in our lives · the five waves of “A Porta Estreita”
Read, watch and listen: learning that carries on
The two newsletters are the same workshop seen from two sides. “50 Hz — O Custo Total do Sistema” (The Total Cost of the System), every week, explains the electricity of Portugal and Europe. “A Porta Estreita” (The Narrow Gate), on Tuesdays, explains why Hormuz matters in our lives. Each topic comes in three forms that complete one another, so that learning carries on after the page is closed.
The article
To think it over calmly.
The full text, every figure explained, the calculations laid out in a method note and the PDF to keep. The numbers are checked against the official sources.
For example: “A eletricidade de Portugal, explicada em perguntas”.
The video
To see the system move.
The Panel at work, the waves moving across the map, the parable told in pictures. What is a sentence in the text can be seen happening in the video.
For example: “A Parábola do Vale das Lanternas”.
The sound
To take with you.
The narration and the original songs of Grupo Aprecisa.com, made for each topic: you can listen in the car or on a walk, and the idea stays with you. In the parable, “A Lanterna que Não Denuncia”; in the Panel video, “Aiué”.
The videos sit next to each article, and all of them are on the @Aprecisa343com channel; the lyrics and chords of the songs are at aprecisa343.com/en-au/music.
- Read
- Watch
- Listen
- Check in one of the two panels, with the day’s figures
Bringing the three forms together is the method: you read, you watch, you listen, and you go back to the day’s figures to check. The learner is at the centre. Each piece is made to be understood, not only to be published.
Two panels, the same yardstick
Think of two thermometers. One measures the temperature inside the house: Portugal’s power grid, which must run at 50 hertz every second. The other measures the weather outside: the world’s routes along which energy, fertiliser and food arrive. Each has its own rigour.
The Painel 50 Hz rests on the official figures of ENTSO-E, the European association of electricity transmission system operators, read through its API (the “service counter” through which one computer asks another for data, explained just below). ENTSO-E publishes Portugal’s generation, consumption and exchanges every quarter of an hour; the panel fetches them every day and checks them, year by year, against the official totals of REN, the Portuguese grid operator.
What is an API? Explained for everyone
API stands for “application programming interface”. In plain words: it is a service counter for computers.
Think of a pharmacy. At the counter, you ask for the medicine by name and receive the sealed box, just as it left the factory: nobody opens it or repacks it along the way. An API works in the same way. The Painel 50 Hz asks ENTSO-E, in writing and in a language both computers understand, for example for “Portugal’s electricity generation, by technology, on 25 October 2026”. ENTSO-E replies with the figures exactly as it published them, with the same level of detail (today, every quarter of an hour).
Why does this make it rigorous? For three reasons:
- No hands along the way: no figure is copied from a website or written by hand, so there are no copying errors.
- Anyone can repeat the request: whoever asks the same API the same question receives the same figures, and can check the panel.
- It is always the same method: the request is the same for any day since 2015; only the date changes.
In “A Porta Estreita”, most of the world’s news does not arrive through a counter like this: it arrives through news agencies and newspapers. So there, rigour is achieved in another way, with the three-source rule, explained next.
The Painel A Porta Estreita measures a world that has no single API. So it starts with the record: each news item comes in as a “report”, the first record of an event, and only becomes a fact once it is confirmed by three independent sources, or by the very source that produces the data. Only then is it treated as data: it lights up the map, goes into the answers and joins the open data series of the IMF, the World Bank, the FAO and Eurostat.
Both use the same yardstick: the calculation behind each number in plain view, and forecasts recorded with a date, so that anyone can see whether they were right. Choose by your question.
The first example of a Nexist audit
Painel 50 Hz — O Custo Total do Sistema (The Total Cost of the System)
Answering a simple question, “where did the electricity I used yesterday come from?”, means bringing together what is usually kept apart. The Painel 50 Hz does this every day, with official data, hour by hour since 2015, and checks the sources against one another. It was built, article by article, from the questions of the newsletter “50 Hz — O Custo Total do Sistema”.
- Portugal: generation by technology, consumption, price and emissions; the reservoirs and the system margin.
- Iberian Peninsula and Europe: what the electricity coming from Spain is made of, including what Spain receives from France and Morocco; the interconnection and the prices on both sides.
- Gas: how much comes in through the port of Sines and from which countries.
- Weather: wind, sun and temperature, compared with what is normal.
- Families: the final price of electricity in Portugal and in the largest countries of the European Union.
- The cross-check: the Panel’s totals compared, year by year, with REN’s official figures.
The second example of a Nexist audit
Painel A Porta Estreita — why Hormuz matters in our lives
It gathers in one place all the information from the series “A Porta Estreita”, simply and rigorously, and tells it at each reader’s level of preparation: from a child to a specialist, and from a lawyer to a geopolitics commentator. It answers the newsletter’s eight questions, starting with “has the gate opened yet?” and “how much has the crisis cost me so far?”. Every day it collects the open data of the IMF, the World Bank, the FAO, Eurostat and DECO (the Portuguese consumer association), and it only treats a news item as confirmed when it comes from the source that produces the data or from three independent sources.
- The gate: ships per day through Hormuz, Bab el-Mandeb and Suez, and around the Cape of Good Hope.
- The five waves: energy trapped, dearer transport and fertiliser, less fertiliser in the fields, smaller harvests, dearer food; when each one arrived and which have already receded.
- The map and the matrix: the wave travelling around the world, day by day, from Asia to the Americas and to Portugal.
- The facts: the timeline of news reports, from “report” to “confirmed”, with links to the sources.
- The forecasts: every forecast in the series, with the date on which it was made and the result once the deadline has passed.
- Each reader, at their own level: choose a level of preparation (child, family, school, university) or a profession (lawyer, accountant, engineer, military officer, commentator on geopolitics, geostrategy or security, decision-maker); the numbers are the same, only the way of explaining them changes.
Four scales, the same system
The physics of the grid is the same in Lisbon, São Paulo or Singapore. What changes are the connections, the prices and the decisions. Each scale has its own articles.
The grid we depend on every day
The worst weeks without wind or sun, the official warnings since 2018 and the water the dams are missing.
An electricity island connected to Europe
The Iberian blackout, the new Minho–Galicia line, German subsidies and the hours when Spain needs its own electricity.
The same yardstick, in the same language
The Portuguese-speaking countries (CPLP) share the challenge of growing with firm energy at a fair price. The yardstick of the total cost of the system serves them all.
From the Gulf to the Indian Ocean
Hormuz, liquefied natural gas and the routes of the Indian Ocean: what is decided in the Persian Gulf reaches the bill of every Portuguese family.
Each person on their own step
The same system can be explained to a child and to a minister. The mathematics changes, not the truth. Two staircases, one for energy and one for why Hormuz matters in our lives, start at the bottom, with children, and climb up to those who decide: start on the step where you stand and climb whenever you wish.
Energy and the power system
From the newsletter “50 Hz — O Custo Total do Sistema” and the Painel 50 Hz
- 1
Children and parents
Three brothers, three questions: how much?, how fast?, is it changing? Onde (Where) tells what has already built up, Rápido (Fast) measures the pace, Empurrão (Push) says whether the pace is changing. A story to tell your children over dinner.
“Onde, Rápido, Empurrão” · “Como combater os incêndios, explicado a quem tem 8 anos”
- 2
School years 7 to 9
Power multiplied by time gives energy; percentages; graphs. With real figures from Portugal, from last week.
“Aprender” (Learn), in the Painel 50 Hz · “A energia não cabe numa régua só”
- 3
Secondary school
Orders of magnitude, logarithmic scales, conservation of energy and what the 50 hertz mean.
“Dez decibéis não são mais dez” · The Panel’s calculations, step by step
- 4
University and engineering
Synchronous inertia, voltage stability and the levelised cost of the whole system, not only that of each power station.
“Preço spot vs. System LCOE” · “A ilusão da energia barata e a morte da inércia síncrona”
- 5
Those who decide
How much it costs not to be left in the dark, who keeps the grid standing and who pays: decisions based on measured numbers, not on adjectives.
“A pior semana” · “Quem segura a pior semana?” · “Evitar o Silêncio Sistémico”
Why Hormuz matters in our lives
From the newsletter “A Porta Estreita” · the daily panel
- 1
Children and parents
Far away from us there is a narrow gate in the sea, the Strait of Hormuz. About a quarter of all the oil carried by ship used to pass through it, and a third of the fertiliser that makes plants grow. When that gate tightens, the price of what we use every day goes up, even the price of food.
“Dia 211: a porta estreita por onde passa a nossa resiliência”
- 2
School years 7 to 9
Percentages and maps: how the same crisis reaches Europe, the Americas and Asia in waves, and the plan each family can make.
“As ondas pelo mundo e o seu plano” · “Dia 241: O painel que responde” · Kit for Geography and Mathematics, in the Painel A Porta Estreita
- 3
Secondary school
Cause and effect: how one failure drags another along, from oil to gas, to transport and to prices.
- 4
University and engineering
Redundancy and hidden dependencies: why having two is not always having two, when both fail for the same reason.
- 5
Those who decide
Crises do not come one at a time: deciding the resilience of the State, of companies and of families for the case in which they come together.
“Dia 220: O azar nunca vem só” · “A Guerra no Irão e a ilusão da transição energética”
↑ Each step rests on the one below: what is learnt at the age of 8 is the same world that is decided in the Council of Ministers.
All the articles
The LinkedIn articles have their full version on this site, with a PDF, and the discussion continues on LinkedIn. The videos that go with each article sit next to it. The opinion articles are published in Observador, a Portuguese newspaper.