Power outages: power outage affected the southern area of ​​the suburbs and part of CABA

Power outages: power outage affected the southern area of ​​the suburbs and part of CABA

A power outage due to a failure in the generation that affected the networks of power distribution It was recorded this Thursday at 7 in the morning in the southern neighborhoods of the city of Buenos Aires and some nearby towns in the Buenos Aires suburbs. By 8:40 the service had completely returned to normal.

Why was the power cut off?

According to official sources revealed to Energy Report, The problem began in the generation segment, with the unexpected departure and surprise 450 MW of the systemwhich later led to problems for the distribution sector.

The data collected minute by minute Cammesa indicated that at 7 o’clock the national interconnected system was operating with 14,117 MW, but a few minutes later the demand fell to 13,666 MW. Only in Greater Buenos Aires, Generation plummeted from 3,896 MW at 7:10 a.m. to 2,784 MW at 7:40 a.m.

Officially, no fire or accident that affected the network was reported. An unofficial version indicated that a fire may have developed in a power plant, but that information was not corroborated by qualified sources.

By 8 a.m., the service monitored by Cammesa had returned to the level of 14,525 MW and slowly the electrical service was reestablished to all users.

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Cammesa. The red line reports in real time the amount of energy delivered to the national interconnected system. At 7 hours an abrupt drop in service is observed.

Who and what neighborhoods was affected by the power outage?

For the multiple power outages For a few minutes the subway network did not work, the traffic lights were interrupted and there were small traffic contingencies at a time when thousands of people took to the streets heading to their jobs or places of study.

Power outages occurred in Villa Crespo, Caballito, Almagro, Mataderos, Liniers, Constitución, Barracas, La Bocabut also in the Buenos Aires towns of Wilde, Avellaneda, Quilmes, Gerli, Lanús, Dock Sudamong others.

During the morning, most users were recovering electrical service, although cases of lack of electricity and water are still reported. The massive outage lasted around 15 minutes.

What did Edesur say about the blackout?

The electrical distribution company reported that due to “unexplained causes” a failure occurred in the generation sector and several substations under its control were affected, causing power outages.

“The service is gradually being normalized”they maintained from Edesur to this medium. Finally, at 8:40 it was confirmed that all users recovered electricity.

Power outages: Government launched a contingency plan

Through the Resolution 294/2024of theto Secretary of Energydependent on Ministry of Economythe “contingency plan and forecast for critical months of the 2024/2026 period″, with the objective of “avoiding, reducing or mitigating the critical energy supply condition for the days of the 2024/2026 period.”

At the same time, it establishes that all actions will be carried out to obtain the energy imports and competition from neighboring countries in hours of high demand on critical days thatwhich will be defined in due course by CAMMESA (administration company of the wholesale electricity market) and crucially during peak hours.

In turn, the Undersecretariat of Electrical Energy is instructed to implement a comprehensive preventive availability scheme with the ENRE and the High Voltage Transportation and Trunk Distribution Concessionaires and Additional Providers of the Transportation Technical Function (PAFTT), to identify critical overload nodes, to have connection of the reserve transformers when needed.

The 9 points that justify the contingency plan for power outages

1. Vulnerability and critical state of the energy sector which is evident in three key aspects: a) collection system b) functionality of the facilities to ensure current and future supply. c) lack of market signals for supply and demand.

2. “Interventionist policies”: In the last 20 years, the Enforcement Authority set energy values ​​that did not take into account the real costs of supplying the system, which caused a permanent deficit in the Stabilization Fund.

3. The differences between the Seasonal Subsidized Price They were covered by the State through contributions repayable to the Unified Fund to financially assist the Stabilization Fund.

4. The deficit situation of the Stabilization Fund was aggravated by the increase in delinquency of debtor agents of the MEM (Wholesale Electricity Market), especially Distributors and Cooperatives providing public services.

5. Coverage of the required power During the last TWO (2) decades it has deteriorated as a consequence of insufficient investment in generation equipment to compensate for the growth in demand and the retirement of units with exceeded useful lives or inefficient.

6. Use of 55% with peak power demands on very hot days in summerand consequently the effective availability of the generation park is insufficient to cover peak power demands without resorting to imports from neighboring countries, and even having to affect the reserve power of the system.

7. The system faces the loss of reliability of thermal machines with antiquities ranging from THIRTY (30) to FIFTY (50) years for the most extreme cases.

8. In electrical energy transportation systemsboth interregional (in extra high voltage) and regional (through trunk distribution), a state of high occupancy is evident, and in some cases, saturation due to the lack of investments, below the minimum needs required for the maintenance of their operational capacity, which has forced them to resort to local generation with additional fuel costs.

9. 2% annual growth in energy demandtogether with the reduction in capacity of thermal generation plants and the request to detach electricity generation plants that are about to exhaust their useful life, highlights the need for investments in new generation plants to have greater availability in the short and medium term. term.

Source: Ambito

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