Gustavo Lopetegui, about the blackout: the fault was Transener and the fine could exceed 400 million dollars

Gustavo Lopetegui, Secretary of Energy of the Nation, is presented this Wednesday, July 3 before the Senate provide explanations for the historic power outage What left almost the entire country, southern Brazil and part of Uruguay without light Sunday, June 16th. The grievor was summoned at 10:00 am by the Mines, Energy and Fuels answer questions from members present and other senators at the hearing. In this context, he stressed that the culprit of the breakdown of 16 June was the transport company Transener, so now the National Regulator of Electricity (ENRE) badess the situation and apply a penalty of up to 400 million pesos fine.

The government has identified those responsible for the blackout, with the help of the National University of La Plata, said Lopetegui before the commission chaired by the Neuquino Guillermo Pereyra. The grievor presented a preliminary report and noted that the final conclusion It can take between 45 days and two months; from there, the regulatory framework will be liable to a maximum fine of 10% of Transener's annual collection or 50% of the company's collection.

As reported by Transener to the Buenos Aires Stock Exchange; in the first quarter of this year it charged 2,671.9 million pesosthat is, an average of 890 million pesos a month; which allows us to deduce that the fine, if it were at 50%, would reach 445 million pesos.

Lopetegui explained that in the section from Salto Grande (a station known as Colonia Elía) to Campana and Belgrano, parallel lines because it is a region that carries a lot of electricity from the north of the country to the center. On April 18, nearly two months before the power outage, one of the two lines was decommissioned because Transener had to move a tower (412) because the river was very close to the original tower, located since many years.

Initially, that did not mean that there would be a problem because there was a parallel line and alternative paths for "surround" the area and arrive without problem to cover all the demand of the southern zone and Greater Buenos Aires. But to ensure supply, what "Has Transener been correctly" It was to build a bypbad linking the still-in-use line to Campana access, a place that consumes a lot of electricity because there are steel mills, said Lopetegui.

"Thus, in order to maintain the reliability of the Campana node and maintain the transport capacity from the Litoral corridor, the network architecture has been modified, there is now a bypbad that did not exist in the area. 39, architecture of origin ", he added.

According to him, it is "good" that the circumvention exists because it was the way to guarantee the supply of Campana and to continue to bring energy from the north, Yacyretá and Salto Grande, and its importation from Brazil. "It happens all the time, Transener changes lines and transformers to make improvements to the system, due to damage or obsolescence," said the Secretary of Energy.

However, at a time when 1,780 megawatts of Yacyretá arrived, a low level due to lack of water in the hydroelectric plant located on the Paraná River since May 30; 1,000 megawatts of Garabí (imported from Brazil); and 900 megawatts of Salto Grande, the failure occurred. In this thousand megabytes were intended for resistance; 820 to the south; 490 in Santa Fe and the remaining 1,650 MB were heading for that part of the line where there was a pbadage to get to Greater Buenos Aires.

Lopetegui denied that "the line Colonia Elía-Belgrano is overloaded because it never worked above its security parameters, it was 18% below the maximum capacity of the line". Demand was 13,200 megawatts at the time of total failure, 30% below the average of one business day.

On Sunday 16 June at 07:06:24 there was a short circuit on the line between Colonia Elía and Belgrano: it's almost usual since there are 60 short circuits a year, almost once a week.

Lopetegui explained that he should have run instantly Automatic generation disconnection (DAG)because when the short circuit occurred, all the demand coming from the south left the system, since the line was no longer transmitting.

Then, to compensate for the absence of this request, the DAG should have sent a signal to the north (in Yacyretá, Salto Grande and Garabí) for the production of electricity to decrease by about 1,200 megawatts, but this signal did not exist. Why did not it exist? Because when Transener built the workaround and changed the network architecture I should have reprogrammed the settings of the DAG because it was still thinking that I had two lines, while one of them was outside the system.

"And because of an operational omission, due to an operational error, from the Transener company, which did not adhere to the established DAG reprogramming protocol when the network architecture was changed, the DAG has not started, "said the Attorney General.

And that's over: "This has been recognized by the company.There is no doubt that the company felt, for whatever reason, that it was not necessary to reprogram the DAG and if it was necessary they should have reprogram the DAG and they did not do it. "

In presenting to the commission, the official presented the preliminary results through a report of CAMMESA and another Transener (company in charge of high voltage transport). In addition, he detailed the intervention of the portfolio that he occupies.

"We already know what happened and we identified who was responsible for each of the failures that occurred. In addition, preventive measures have been taken to prevent this from happening again, "said Lopetegui.

The National Energy Regulatory Agency (ENRE) he must then evaluate the research that the electrotechnical team of the National University of La Plata has collaborated. The agency will give its opinion and will establish penalties for those responsible for the breakdown.

The fault that caused the breakdown occurred just after 7 am on the Sunday when Father's Day was celebratedAnd it's widespread for 13 hours for most residences in the country, although in some localities the power supply was not restored until 24 or even 48 hours later. The tragedy is repeated a week later in La Plata, which undergoes service cuts of up to three days.

What does one know up to now from the reason of the historic power outage?

On the Sunday of the power outage, Lopetegui was unhappy with the lack of arguments that his aides gave him, according to the magazine. news"In 15 days, the causes of the power outage will be known," he promised at a conference the following Monday. Now the secretary of energy is expected provide technical details on the progress of the investigation under development and should report on the measures taken by the government to prevent future incidents.

For its part, the government has "pardoned" fines of more than 7,000 million euros in Edesur and Edenor, the two companies that supply the city of Buenos Aires and much of the conurbano, allowing them to spend more money on the city. use these funds for "investment commitments".

Blackout in Argentina: for an Italian media outlet, the local network is "obsolete"

The Senate Mining Commission is composed of 19 members, seven of whom are members of the PJ block and seven others, change; two are from Kirchner Front for the victory, one of the Peronism of Salta, one of the Frente Renovador of Concordia de Misiones and the rest of South Project. Among other things, legislators will be looking for the reason for the outage.

Mbadive cut. Although the causes are still unclear, it appears from the information that four failures were identified that led to the power outage: two transmission system problems and two lagging plants, according to Transener and Cammesa.

The origin of the problems would have been unleashed in the coastal corridor. The first defect occurred in the Colonia Elía / Mercedes section, but the shutdown of this line was successful, which meant that it had no effect on the system. What happened was that the anomaly was repeated and serious difficulties started, since a section that should have been automatically disabled remained active.

NA / H.B.