Brazil’s plans to ramp up its electricity consumption with a series of new hyrdoelectric dams in the Amazon basin are proceeding, as a historic gathering of indigenous people meets in opposition.

The government estimates that the planned dams will provide the majority of Brazil’s electric capacity over the next several decades — primarily for mining, metal processing and industrial agriculture industries in the Eastern Amazon.

The government has selected Paris-based Suez to build the 3,300 MW Jirau Dam on the Madeira River for $5.3 billion. The company has already announced that it intends to take the dam operational in April 2012, a year ahead of schedule.

The Jirau group, in charge of the dam, is 50.1 percent owned by Suez, 20 percent by Camargo Correa, and another 20 percent and 9 percent by the government companies Centrais Eletricas do Sul do Brasil SA and Companhia Hidroeletrica do Sao Francisco, respectively.

The rights to another dam on the Madeira — the San Antonio Dam — have already been acutioned to a group led by Brazilian conglomerate Odebrecht. The Madeira is the Amazon’s largest tributary.

In the same week, Brazil signed an agreement with Peru for the construction of a total of 15 “hydropower plants” in Peru that will sell electricity to Brazil. Construction on the first is expected to start next year.

Meanwhile, the Xingu Encounter 2008 — “a 5-day mass gathering of 1,000 Brazilian Amazon Indians and their allies to protest the development and construction of government-supported hydroelectric dam projects on the Xingu River” — has begun. Check out the Xingu Encounter Blog for updates or check back here next week for a summary.