when the market picks up energy that's what's going on

First reflections of the OETEC Observatory on the mbadive power outage affecting all interconnected provinces, even affecting Uruguay, Chile and Brazil. In the same way that we believe in the January 22nd blackout and its cause in the transportation segment, we consider that The very serious and historic power outage of this 16th of June is a direct consequence of the commodification of energy and the tariff scam. Moreover, what happened should not be surprising.

The postcard of collapse, green line. Has the problem in computer warning systems failed, as Lopetegui said? The official defends his employer, Mauricio Macri. The parallel line that was to replace the fallen line had delayed work since April. The work in question, as reported by CAMMESA itself, concerns the displacement of a tower. They go almost four months to move a tower. Behind this maintenance work, IECSA. And the carrier in charge of the lines mentioned, Yacylec, the company in which the president of the Nation holds shares. And money rates?

The first thing to say is that we are in the presence of the third most serious electricity blackout in history since the constitutional return after 1999 and 2002. As we have reported once and a thousand, it is remarkable that no event of this magnitude has appeared between 2003 and 2015, that is, say at the time of the so-called era of energy crisis. As everything they expected would happen if I followed this damn populism, it ends up happening with Cambiemos.

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In terms of transmission, Remember that according to the CAMMESA report published in its 2017 annual report (last available) and that it was published in 2018, during the first two years of management, the expansion of the high voltage network (TA) was paralyzed. Similarly, although the annual report for last year is not yet available, nor has a single meter of high voltage line been added in 2018. In short, after three years of administration, the change in the AT network has not changed compared to what it had received in 2015. Regarding the main lines, it has increased from 471 km between 2014 and 2015 at 163 between 2016 and 2017, a drop 65% The divestment is alarming and can not be dissociated from any of the problems that Argentina is suffering with regard to electricity.

Third, and more specifically to the collapse of 16 June, it should be noted that Lopetegui lied about Yacyretá during his press conference: the fault was not in this plant because it appeared in almost all the press from the beginning of the breakdown. The binational entity of Yacyretá itself was instructed to deny it by means of an official statement stating that the origin of the electrical collapse corresponds to the transmission lines of the Argentine system. Nor is it the fault of computers and automatic stalls that would not have been executed, as the manager said.

Where was the problem then? How is it possible that a short circuit in a 500 kV line (Colonia Elía-Belgrano) could result in the collapse of the entire interconnected system? That's what Lopetegui hides because he defends his employer, Mauricio Macri, the parallel line that was to replace the fallen line had been delayed since April. The work in question, as reported by CAMMESA itself, concerns the displacement of a tower. Well, it's been almost four months to move a tower. The construction company IECSA (Marcelo Mindlin) is at the origin of this maintenance work. And the carrier in charge of the lines mentioned, Yacylec, the company in which the president of the Nation holds shares. Add to that a second important work, which would have avoided this problem, but which was abandoned since 2015 and which was part of the closure of the NEA-NDA, a work undertaken by the Ministry of Planning which allowed the integration from nine provinces in northern Argentina. at SADI. (1) We refer to the line that would have enabled the evacuation of the Yacyretá generation to the north of the country (2).

Yacylec, the carrier that operates the lines connecting the Yacyretá plant to SADI, is chaired by President Macri. Its financial situation is disastrous, as the newspaper La Nación reported in December of last year. There, even something is mentioned about the work in charge of this company. The OETEC Observatory then suggests that Lopetegui first look at Yacylec's balance sheets and the investments made (or not) in its transmission system.

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From our Observatory, we also reject the deadline given by Lopetegui to know the causes of the collapse: 15 days to inform the public that the IECSA was delayed by four months to relocate a tower? 15 days to study the cause of the short-circuit in the line concerned and if it was a lack of insulation due to a zero maintenance investment, to know when? Lopetegui blames computers and automatic generation mechanisms. But these mechanisms are executed with a moderately balanced system. This was not the case. The system was totally unbalanced.

They came to solve a supposed energy crisis that did not exist, but they ended up making it to justify the disaster that they organized, their fabulous deal and the wild transfer of money into the pockets of citizenship and budgets of SMEs, via rate, a handful of companies members of executive power and even in which the president of the Nation has interests, such as the Yacylec case. As we went to the collapse of electricity, that there was no investment, that demand could not increase due to lack of infrastructure news, etc., etc. As everything they expected would happen if I followed this damn populism, it ends up happening with Cambiemos. We suffered the worst electrical collapse in history. And thank you that we were producing electricity at the 2014 level.

(1) The beneficiary provinces were Misiones, Corrientes, Chaco, Formosa, Jujuy, Salta, Catamarca, Santiago del Estero and Tucumán. The NEA-NOA ring also allows energy exchange between neighboring countries, including Brazil.

(2) 500 kV high voltage line between ET Resistencia and ET Yacyretá (Rincón Sta María). This line was unfinished in its construction with more than 60% of work progress. Literally, his entrepreneur, Electroingeniería, was forced to abandon the project.