MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency
Argentine company admits responsibility in major blackout in Mercosur countries
Gustavo Lopetegui (C) told a congressional committee that the Transener company that operates the lines failed to account for and reprogram an emergency system Argentina’s energy secretary says improper reprogramming of the electricity system following the installation of a bypass on a major transmission line caused the power outage that left tens of millions of people in three nations without power.
Gustavo Lopetegui told a congressional committee on Wednesday that the Transener company that operates the lines failed to account for and reprogram an emergency system after replacing a high-voltage tower.
So when a short circuit hit the grid, the suddenly imbalanced system didn’t adjust to it as planned and the grid collapsed.
Transener issued a statement of apology later Wednesday.
Many people in Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay were left without power for 14 hours on June 16.
Lopetegui says regulators will determine what penalties to apply.
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Read all commentsSo it was a programming error after a tower was replaced.
Jul 09th, 2019 - 05:39 pm 0But Reekie said it was because of “the companies incessant drive to maximize profits in detriment of reliability...only two of three extra high voltage lines were working... The system sent an alarm two days before the blackout -- that alarm was ignored.”
https://en.mercopress.com/2019/06/17/massive-blackout-hits-mercosur-argentina-and-uruguay-in-the-dark-for-six-hours-major-investigation-promised
Seems to me that the Transener company was actually in the process of repairing infrastructure when the error occurred.
ZB
Jul 09th, 2019 - 07:33 pm 0“So it was a programming error after a tower was replaced.”
What a feeble attempt to take responsibility from the energy companies and the government's oversight.
Tower 412 had been taken off service on April 18, which took off service one of three extra high-voltage lines, which overloaded the two lines remaining in service.
Two months later, when the massive outage occurred on June 16, a new replacement tower had not yet been reconnected. How many months would be required to install a high-voltage tower?
And yes. Irresponsibility was rampant as an alarm two days before the blackout were ignored, as I said in my previous post.
However, do not expect a lot of disclosure or consequences. The energy companies are the darlings of president Macri, having benefited from huge energy price increase to users.
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