Portfolio management is a process that belongs to innovation management, whose objective is to translate the company's technology strategy. Portfolio management entails the systematic evaluation, selection and prioritization of R&D projects in the organizational context. The aim of this article is to discuss the use of tools for managing the R&D portfolio in the Brazilian electrical sector, using the case study of an energy distribution company as an analytical support. The Brazilian electrical sector was chosen due to the significant resources invested in R&D over the last 10 years, which surpassed US $1 billion. In this sector, investment in research projects and guidelines for their completion are enforced by law. Otherwise, energy companies would not invest in R&D; they would rather buy equipment and systems from international suppliers. For this reason, the government agency ANEEL (Agncia Nacional de Energia Eltrica) enforces Brazilian energy companies to invest in R&D, aiming at the creation of a national innovation system. Through this, companies are obliged to invest around 0.5 percent of their EBTs (earning before taxes) in R&D projects. The execution of these projects is also strongly supervised by ANEEL, which guarantees that their results will turn into new products, patents, job creation, tariff reduction and operational efficiency for the company. Then, R&D projects do not only pursue technology risk but also the so-called regulatory risk. If projects are not accomplished with the government criteria, energy companies may be strongly penalized. In order to avoid such regulatory risk, companies shall implement portfolio management tools to guide their technology strategies. Regulatory risk should be prioritized in the evaluation and selection of research projects. Hence, the company's R&D portfolio must be balanced in such a way that the expectations of all stakeholders, namely, society, government and the company's board, are attended. Therefore, the use of portfolio management tools like technology roadmaps and strategic baskets communicate a company's strategy to its external R&D partners and help it manage regulatory risks much better. In the end, this article shows methods of selection and prioritization of R&D projects, which were developed by a big energy company. The methodology used in this article includes a literature review and interviews carried out with the innovation management area of the selected company. The results help the authors make practical suggestions to support the R&D portfolio management of all energy companies whose research activities are also regulated.