Copel - Companhia Paranaense de Energia, the largest company of the State of Paraná, was founded on October 26, 1954 with ownership control held by the State of Paraná. The Company went public in April 1994 (BM&FBovespa) and, in 1997, it was the first company of the Brazilian electricity sector to be listed at the New York Stock Exchange. As from June 2002, the brand is also present at the European Economic Community, having been listed at Latibex - the Latin American arm of the Madrid Stock Exchange. As of May 7, 2008, Copel's shares were ranked at Level 1 of São Paulo Stock Exchange (BM&FBovespa)'s Corporate Governance. The Company directly serves 4,255,804 consuming units, across 395 cities and 1,113 locations (districts, villages and settlements), located in the State of Paraná. This network consists of 3.3 million homes, 91 thousand plants, 348 thousand commercial establishments and 372 thousand rural properties. The staff is composed of 8,573 employees. Copel's structure comprises the operation of: an own generating complex composed of 20 power plants (18 hydroelectric plants, 1 thermal plant and 1 wind plant), whose installed capacity totals 4,756 MW; the transmission system totaling 2,174 km of lines and 33 substations (all of them automated); the distribution system, which consists of 188,654 km of lines and network of up to 230 kV - enough to spin four times round the Earth through the Equator line - and 361 substations (100% automated); the optical telecommunication system (Paraná's Infoway), which has 9,559 km of OPGW cables installed between the main ring and urban radials (self-sustained cables), totaling 15,817 km and reaching 399 cities of the State of Paraná and 2 cities of the State of Santa Catarina.