This afternoon, a heat wave accompanied by a field fire generated a massive power outage that affected the Central Region of Argentinaincluding Buenos Aires, Córdoba, Santa Fe, La Rioja and Tucumán. The Government confirmed that approximately half of the national interconnected system was left without supply, affecting hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses.
Official sources reported that the electrical contingency was due to the outage of a 500 kV Campana-Rodríguez high voltage line, which suffered a failure as a result of the field fire. In addition, other power generation plants, such as Central Port and Atucha Iwere disconnected from the system as a control measure.
The massive power outage caused an abrupt drop in electricity demand, as indicated by the graphs of cam, the company in charge of the wholesale electricity market. The situation affected not only homes and businesses in the Central Region, but also northern provinces, the coast and Patagonia.
Recent history of blackouts in Argentina
The high voltage electricity transport company, Transener, confirmed that the contingency generated oscillations in the system and that they launched their Contingency Plan to restore supply. From the Secretary of Energy, in charge of Flavia Royón, it was stated that they are working quickly to solve the problem.
It is important to highlight that the Atucha I Nuclear Power Plant was not the cause of the blackout, but that the fault in the interconnected system was external. The Nucleoeléctrica company, in charge of controlling the three nuclear power plants in the country, assured that Atucha I went out of service and is in a safe shutdown.
It should be remembered that Transene was also the company involved in the historic blackout of 2019 that affected more than 50 million users in Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay. The magnitude of today’s massive power outage reinforces the need to continue working on the improvement and safety of the system national interconnected.
The authorities assure that the entire service will be restored in the next few hours. Hypotheses of sabotage by unscrupulous people are not ruled out.