One new massive power outage left again no service to 150,000 users this morning in the northern corridor of the metropolitan area of Buenos Aires (AMBA), after a discharge occurs in a transformer of Edenor’s Edison substation that he took her out of service. The sharp drop in demand, produced at 8:15 in the morning with 28.9 ° C, in turn dragged generating machines from Central Puerto.
“Unlike Tuesday, this fall in demand had a calmer landing, it was a more benevolent exit, for which the replacement is expected to be less traumatic. Half of the combined cycle that left is already entering and we are waiting for Sacme, which is the company that manages the outgoing loads of the networks in the city and greater Buenos Aires, enable us to be able to give us tension to turn on the two turbo steam engines“Said sources from Central Puerto.
In Edenor they explained that the service interruption lasted between 30 and 45 minutes, approximately, and that at the time of the massive outage, the service had already been restored to all customers. “What we have so far is that it would be a fault in a measuring transformer, but we are analyzing and investigating the cause ”, they informed the distributor.
According to the page of the Electricity Regulatory Body (ENRE), at 11:05 there were 6159 Edesur users without electricity and 8249 from Edenor. But nevertheless, the official page did not report the number of customers who were without electricity at 8:15, when it was the Edenor incident. The same had happened on Tuesday, when the page did not report the 700,000 affected users either., which the distributor had confirmed.
The most affected areas, which depend on Edesur, are Boedo, Flores, Liniers, Mataderos, Parque Chacabuco, Recoleta and Parque Patricios, and towns in the southern suburbs such as Avellaneda, Almirante Brown, Lanús and Lomas de Zamora, among others, due to interruptions in the medium or low voltage service.
In the case of the Edenor area, users without supply are located in San Isidro, La Matanza, Escobar, Belgrano, Tigre, San Martín, Hurlingham, Merlo, Pilar, Moreno, San Isidro and San Miguel, among others.
At 11:15 am, electricity demand in the country exceeded yesterday’s consumption at the same time by 1000 MW, explained by almost three degrees more than the previous day, with 34.3 ° C.
The Government ordered that state employees not go to the offices and do teleworking to reduce electricity consumption between yesterday and today, and them asked companies to lower their production and reduce their electricity consumption, a measure that was used during the administration of Roberto Baratta, former secretary of Coordination of Julio De Vido (Ministry of Planning) and the former secretary of Internal Trade, Guillermo Moreno. Despite this measure, yesterday Argentina broke a new record for electricity demand.
Cammesa, the company in charge of dispatching electricity, projects for today a demand of 27,356 megawatts (MW) at 3:00 p.m., which would be very close to yesterday’s record of 27,550 MW, which was reached at 3:14 p.m. with 30.1 ° C. This is the third maximum of electricity consumption that is broken in just 15 days. The previous ones had been last Tuesday, with an electricity demand of 27,234 MW and a temperature of 33.3 ° C, and on December 29, with 27,088 MW and 31.7 ° C.
Last Tuesday, at 1:14 p.m., a fire started in a residence in the municipality of San Martín affected Edenor’s 220 kv high voltage line, which connects the Morón and Malaver transformer stations, according to the distributor. More than 700,000 users were left without electricity, when the thermometer in the AMBA read 37 ° C and the demand for electricity exceeded 27,000 MW.
The distributors they advise set the air conditioner to 24 degrees for a more balanced consumption and alternate it with a fan, which consumes up to 12 times less. They also advise closing doors and windows, to prevent the entry of air from outside into the air-conditioned environment; the use of curtains, eaves or awnings on the windows, which helps reduce energy expenditure to air-condition an environment; keep air-conditioned only the rooms in use and periodically clean the air filters to avoid energy losses.
“No temperatures of more than 39 ° C have been recorded since 1961 in the center of demand of the Argentine interconnection system (SADI), with the most widespread heat wave between December 22 and 30, 2013 ″, says the latest report from G&G Energy Consultants.