After the sanctions announced by the government for blackouts during the long weekend, electricity distributors continue to anticipate a summer with new heat waves and less rain. This can be seen from the special climate report presented by Edesur to the Electricity Regulatory Entity (ENRE), where expects higher-than-usual temperatures in the next three months.
“It is expected that within the January/February/March quarter temperatures will remain above the average values, with more episodes of heat waves. Sometimes longer than they have historically been”indicate the conclusions of the “update of the weather report with trends for summer 2022/2023”, a work that Edesur commissioned from a meteorologist and to which he adhered clarion.
Before the summer, companies in the sector must submit these reports to the regulatory authorities, together with the work plan for the summer period. In this case, the distributors ensure that they have invested in works, hired technicians and set up guards, as well as generators, to deal with any unforeseen events. But the the eruption of 570,000 cuts between last Thursday and Friday has put a strain on relations with the authorities.
The supply disruption coincided with record energy demand and sharp rise in temperatures, which They reached over 40 degrees. In this context, the controller appointed by Sergio Massa in ENRE, Walter Mertello, has started a process of sanctions and embargoes of distributors, based on private weather reports: “Edesur anticipated what the unexpected events of the summer would be like a few days ago And they couldn’t do it.”
The report in question maintains the previous forecast of above-average maximum temperatures and indicates that the “late frost” has materialized in the field, while “precipitation is expected to be lower than the summer average in terms of volume and quantity of episodes, but warns on the possibility that some specific episodes contain intense but short-lived rainfall, with the presence of hail and gusts of strong wind”.
From the ENRE, they argue that in addition to the irregular temperatures, the problem is the “chronic underinvestment”. While the companies ensure that the conditions are better than in other years, despite the “change of rules”. “You don’t plan the work in 15 days and you don’t know where consumption will shoot or how customers will behave in relation to the heat wave, there is no way to predict it,” they underline in the sector.
According to industry data, the average disruption per customer was 33 hours per year in 2016 and today it’s 11 hours a year. The tugs for power outages occur amid industry unrest due to the decree made official last week that extended the tariff emergency and postponed the overall tariff review, suspended since the start of Alberto Fernández’s administration and which, according to the Finance , had been to be resumed in 2023.
Source: Clarin
