The power outage on Wednesday left it without power 20 million people in half of the country it has triggered alerts on the state of power lines. There is a coincidence between the Government and the technicians: it wasn’t a generational problem. This means that the country has enough electricity to power homes. But the network to carry this current is not in good condition.
A fire in the pastures – which is still being investigated whether it was arson or a consequence of the heat – has reached three high-voltage lines that bring electricity to Buenos Aires from the coast. Can those cables be protected from a crash? asked clarion to various specialists.
“This system that we have today is stressed on extreme days. Fixing a system for those spikes costs money. It’s a decision and it requires discussion. You cannot have a European service with Argentine fares”, It was born as a reflection in a radio dialogue between Julián Gadano and Esteban Kiper, two energy specialists.
Faced with very hot situations, the electrical system works to the limit. Upgrading cabling and transmission lines to make them safer is feasible and costly. The Buenos Aires distributors (Edenor and Edesur), who may be interested in this task, have recombined the rates below inflation from 2019 to 2022. Only this year have they been able to monitor the evolution of the cost of living.
“The country has nothing left in generation. It is very fair and on the verge of having to import the emergency from Brazil. But Wednesday’s situation would have put any system at risk. Very hot, with people already back from holidays, with peaks in demand. To this we must add that the state of the cables is certainly not optimal,” said another specialist, who asked not to be quoted.
Energía yesterday released a document on the investments accumulated in the electric transport system.
“If there is no progress with the development of transport infrastructurethe system that today is solicited only at the end, will be so more and more frequently and in less extreme conditions”, according to Esteban Kiper, consultant and former vice president of Cammesa, the wholesale administrator of the electricity system, in the second intervention by Cristina Ternndez de Kirchner.
“It is urgent that mechanisms be defined to move from paper to works, and that the project to upgrade the transport system that is in the pipeline is implemented, and which includes: works to expand the import capacity and guarantee the supply of AMBA in the next decade; Work to evacuate power from Santa Cruz hydroelectric plants, work to connect Cuyo with AMBA and strengthen AMBA supply and make the system more redundant,” he posted on Twitter.
The Buenos Aires metropolitan area requires electricity that comes from within. In fact, Wednesday’s cut was due to a supply arriving in the province via the coast. No specialist believes that these jobs will face the level of tariff delay (in dollars) of the bills of Buenos Aires-Buenaerense in relation to what is charged for the supply of electricity in the interior or in the main cities of other Latin American countries.
Just as the producers of Vaca Muerta couldn’t get all the gas they could get there because they have no way to get it to other places, the same thing is starting to happen with electricity generation. Renewable projects – profitable, and between private individuals – encounter the obstacle of not being able to be expanded because there is a lack of transmission lines, that is, the capacity to discharge that energy to other points in the system.
The Vaca Muerta pipeline has accumulated years of intentions, and only in the last 6 months has it started to be put into operation, with the promise of arriving during the next winter. Specialists believe that the electricity transmission network should also be designed with the same ambition, so that more energy can be incorporated into the system.
Source: Clarin
