Several failures in the Argentine electrical system caused an extensive blackout this Wednesday that affected several areas of the country, including Buenos Aires.
According to data from the Wholesale Electricity Market Administration Company (Cammesa), electricity demand collapsed starting at 04:00 p.m. local time (2:00 p.m., Colombian time) in almost the entire country, although with an impact disparate.
For its part, the high-voltage electricity transmission company Transener reported that three high-voltage lines linking the transformer stations of the Buenos Aires town of General Rodríguez with the Litoral area (northeast) took place as a result of of a fire in a field.
Transener said that, together with Cammesa, it implemented a contingency plan and began work to restore supply. Due to the blackout, interruptions were reported in commuter rail services in Buenos Aires and in the capital’s metro.
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A cut occurred due to high temperatures
«The blackout is big, it affects several provinces. At a time of high temperatures as it was today in a large part of the country, the electricity sector demanded 25,000 megawatts and there was a cut that removed some 9,000 megawatts. This is because the system is broken«, explained the Undersecretary of Energy, Santiago Yanotti, in statements to the channel C5N.
In the city of Buenos Aires, several neighborhoods were temporarily without electricity and the cut affected the metro network, rail services and hundreds of traffic lights.
The origin of the cut would have been a fire that broke out in a field 60 km north of Buenos Aires, near the high voltage lines, which connected to the Atucha 1 nuclear power plant, said the official.
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.
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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 are 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» because the drinking water distribution system is electrically dependent and has no power, in a statement.
The service is being restored a bit and we hope to have the service restored in a few hours
There was no report of official figures, but the power cut will affect different cities in the provinces of Santa Fe and Córdoba (in the center of the country), the Cuyo region (to the west), Patagonia (to the south) and the northwest of the country, a government source told AFP.
«The service is being restored little by little and we hope to have the service restored in a few hours,» said Yanotti. Meanwhile, the two dams in the south of the country and the one in Yacyretá (in the northeast) remained in service and with good generation, Yanotti said.
The incident occurred as Argentina went through its ninth heat wave this summer. The capital is experiencing its hottest summer since records began in 1961, according to the weather service.
With information from AFP and EFE
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