Much of the metropolitan area of Buenos Aires (Amba) and several provinces of Argentina were left without power this Wednesday afternoon, due to a fire that occurred in some pastures that affected three high-voltage transmission lines.
This incident, in turn, took the Atucha I nuclear power plant out of service, which generated an imbalance between the demand and supply of electricity in the Argentine interconnection system (Sadi).
About 40% of the country’s total electricity demand was left without power, which is equivalent to more than six million homes or 20 million people.
At 10 pm there were still large areas without light. The blackout caused, on a day of intense heat, the collapse of transport, the paralysis of production plants and the loss of merchandise in homes and businesses. It also affected the water supply.
Argentina, without light
According to official data, more than 80,000 users in the Buenos Aires metropolitan area were still without electricity on Wednesday night. In the city, the most affected neighborhoods were Caballito, Flores and Parque Chacabuco.
In the province of Buenos Aires, different areas of Lanús, Lomas de Zamora, Avellaneda, Quilmes and Florencio Varela were affected with respect to the company Edesur. On the other hand, in the northern zone (Edenor) cuts were reported in Merlo, General Pacheco and Pilar.
In the sector, however, they point to the maintenance of transmission lines and the lack of reaction to the fire, which could have occurred due to high temperatures and drought.
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After 7 pm, the Government stated that all the 500 kW lines (the high voltage ones) of the Sadi were already in service. Sources from the sector, however, showed that the supply at that time reached 19,500 MW, with partial recovery from the minimum of 15,100 MW to which the offer fell after the afternoon event.
“We estimate that in the next hour, the distributors in each region will increase load up to the estimate of 25,000 MW that could be demanded in the second maximum of the night around 8:30 p.m. We estimate that this serious event will be overcome within the next hour,” they said.
In fact, the blackout was so serious on the ground in Greater Buenos Aires that the Buenos Aires governor, Axel Kicillof, had to suspend the opening of sessions of the legislature of the province.
“In the face of an imbalance in the supply of energy, the system responds immediately, causing the disconnection of generation for its own protection. As a consequence of this interruption, the provinces of Santa Fe, Córdoba, Mendoza, San Juan and the south of the Argentine northwest are affected”, they had said in the Secretary of Energy hours after the incident.
That was the fire
Argentina has three nuclear power plants: Atucha I, Atucha II (both in Zárate, Buenos Aires) and Embalse (Córdoba), operated by the state company Nucleoeléctrica.
The source of the outage was a fire that broke out at 4 pm local time in a field 60 km north of Buenos Aires, near high-voltage lines connecting to the Atucha I nuclear power plant, an official said.
Then, as a security measure, the Atucha I and Central Puertos electricity generation plants went out of service, Nucleoeléctrica, the national nuclear electricity company, clarified on Twitter. This measure affected the power supply in large areas of the country.
In a note addressed Wednesday night to the Campana Federal Court, with jurisdiction in the area, the Minister of Economy, Sergio Massa, asked to “investigate, prosecute and, where appropriate, arrest those responsible for the very serious events that could fall within the crimes of arson and havoc”, when expressing his “certainty about the intentionality” of what happened.
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The incident occurred as Argentina is going through its ninth heat wave this summer. The capital is experiencing its hottest summer since records began in 1961, according to the weather service.
In the city of Buenos Aires, several neighborhoods were temporarily without electricity service and the cut affected the metro network, railway services and hundreds of traffic lights, although power was gradually restored, on a day with temperatures that exceeded 36 degrees Celsius.
“In the Aeroparque Metropolitano and the Ezeiza International Airport there were microcuts that did not interrupt services,” the source reported. The AySA company, which supplies running water and sewers in Buenos Aires and its periphery, asked the population to make “rational use of water” in a statement.
AFP AND THE NATION / ARGENTINA (GDA)
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