This study intends to analyze the political processes related to the electrification of Espírito Santo, investigating its influence on the implementation and configuration of the electric power sector in this state. To accomplish this task, we will analyze historical documents and statistical data to explore the phenomena that are related to the national industrialization process with a strong state presence during the 20th century, where the context of inequalities between the economies of the federated entities were decisive issues for the application of different policies for the electric energy sector. This conjuncture was part of the local political projects, which depended on the relations cultivated between the different regional and national political elites for its execution. In this scenario, in the state of Espírito Santo, the various stages of the consolidation process of the national electrical system helped to trigger the rupture with the economic system based on coffee growing, determining an inseparable relationship between the demand for electricity and electro-intensive industrialization. Thus, three factors proved to be decisive in the configuration of the electricity sector in Espírito Santo: (1) the dependence on historical interests of the national development project; (2) the need for self-production of electricity by the industrial park in addition to the national grid and coupled with this factor; (3) the predominance of thermoelectric generating plants. In this way, a current paradox stands out: if, on the one hand, the Espírito Santo economy is increasingly inserted in an international logic, which presupposes the production of low-carbon energy, decentralized, through renewable sources, on the other hand, has abundant availability of energy sources with high CO2 emissions and an immediate need for large-scale domestic energy production.