Argentina’s power outage left 20 million people without power
Photo: Matias Baglietto/Portal
More than 6 million homes in Argentina were without power this Wednesday afternoon, 1st, after a fire reached the highvoltage power lines between Campana and General Rodríguez. Due to the incident, the Atucha I nuclear power plant was affected, which caused the power outage.
The case happened around 4 p.m. and lasted about 2 hours. According to local newspaper La Nación, 40% of total electricity needs were affected, equivalent to 20 million people including much of Greater Buenos Aires (AMBA).
The blackout in Buenos Aires was so severe that Governor Axel Kicillof had to suspend the opening of provincial legislature sessions.
“In the event of an imbalance in the energy supply, the system reacts immediately and switches off generation for its own protection. As a result of this disruption, the provinces of Santa Fe, Córdoba, Mendoza, San Juan and southern Northwest Argentina have been affected,” the Department of Energy said minutes before 6 p.m., two hours after the incident.
That night, Economy Minister Sergio Massa asked the judiciary to investigate the fire “on the islands of the Paraná River Delta”. However, according to La Nación, the sector continues to point to the maintenance of transmission lines and the lack of response to the fire, which may have occurred due to high temperatures and drought.
After 7:00 p.m., the government announced that “all 500 kW lines are already operational [alta tensão] by SADI”. However, industry sources indicated that supply at that point reached 19,500MW, with a partial recovery from the 15,100MW minimum that supply fell to after this afternoon’s event.
“We estimate that distributors in each region will ramp up the load to an estimated 25,000MW over the next hour, which could be requested by the second peak of the night around 8:30pm. Supply in Comahue is close to normalization; interior of the province of Buenos Aires; Coast; and NE. Significant difficulties still exist in Patagonia; Know; Center; NO A; and in particular Greater Buenos Aires. We estimate that this serious event will be over in the next hour,” they said.
After 7 p.m., the government reported that “all 500kW lines are already operational [alta tensão] by SADI”. “We estimate that distributors in each region will ramp up the load to an estimated 25,000MW over the next hour, which could be requested by the second peak of the night around 8:30pm. Supply in Comahue is close to normalization; interior of the province of Buenos Aires; Coast; and NE. Significant difficulties still exist in Patagonia; Know; Center; NO A; and in particular Greater Buenos Aires. We assume that this serious event will be over in the next hour.”
Source: Editora Terra