At the beginning of March, almost half of the country –20 million people – electricity lost due to fire. The heat and drought caused a fire to hit the Rodriguez de Transener station, the transport company of the electrical system. That accident caused the disconnection of three high-voltage lines. Immediately the electric generators went out, to defend against the unknown.
An accident of this nature it could repeat itself in the face of a new combination of high temperature and drought. There is no way to protect transmission lines from the impact of fire smoke. What can be done is for electric transport to be “deconcentrated” and not remain excessively focused on special areas. Transener has presented projects to the Energy Secretariat in this sense.
But electrical transmission works are expensiveThey have no political impact (they are usually not inaugurated by politicians) and are designed with a ten-year horizon. Transener plans two more stations where its transmission lines run. Had they worked, the early March blackout would not have happened, according to power industry sources.
Electricity consumption in Argentina grows by 3% per year. In addition, renewable energies and other forms of generation that do not find transport capacity are added. The system is nearly saturated.
Transener presented a plan – almost 1,000 pages long – with suggestions for improving the transport system. The control of the company is in the hands of Citelec, a company of Pampa Energía (of Marcelo Mindlin) and Enarsa, the state company that deals with the importation of gas and the construction of the gas pipeline up to Vaca Muerta.
The early March cut also coincided with a very high demand (at the top), and drought in the fieldswhich can cause fire. The hypothesis of arson – paraded at the time by the Executive Power – seems to have lost relevance.
Transener had a batting average of own failure on Father’s Day 2019, which left the whole country without electricity. But the incident in March it would not be your responsibility according to company sources. The company checks its towers and the vegetation that grows in the areas quite regularly, but does not have fire protection.
According to specialists, other electric transport systems -California, USA suffers from drought and wildfires worse than local ones- nor do they have safeguards against this unforeseen event. The difference is that they have “backup” power plants for such incidents. “They’re systems that when something like this happens, they have three backup centers,” they explain. On the other hand, Argentina has no support in the summer. There is no plant ready to go instantly when three transmission lines fail, as they did.
In his speech at the opening of the legislative sessions, President Alberto Fernández proclaimed that “Argentina is the energy the world needs”. A few hours later, one minute before four in the afternoon, that statement boomed: a fire caused an electrical accident unprecedented in four years, leaving nearly 20 million people without electricity for between 3 and 4 hours.
electrical blackout lasted four hours and has played – at different times – almost the whole country: from the north-east to Santa Cruz, passing through Córdoba, Mendoza, Santa Fe and Buenos Aires.
A fire in a field, of some pastures, caused the interruption of an electric transmission line, which connects Campana with General Rodríguez. Immediately three high-voltage lines went out of order. They are the ones that connect General Rodriguez’s posts with the Littoral area.
The fall of the transmission lines practically paralyzed the country for almost four hours. Lots of different thermal plants”disengage” of the system and limiting the supply of electricity. By five o’clock, 40 percent of the country’s normally available electricity generation was out of order. An estimated 20 million people were without electricity at the time.
The disconnection of the plants is a preventive mechanism against the emergency. They leave the system out of fear that an accident will harm them.
Source: Clarin
