MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

CABA: Electricity supply restored gradually but “complicated” days ahead

Temperatures are expected to rise Thursday and Friday, so electricity consumption will not go down

Although the electricity supply resumed gradually in the Buenos Aires Metropolitan Area (AMBA) starting at around 3 pm, “complicatted” days lie ahead given the scorching heat that boosts demand to operate air conditioning equipment. By Wednesday afternoon, service began to be restored to 70% of households, but some 196,000 users were estimated to still be without power after two massive blackouts.

While investigations into the cause of both incidents are underway, sabotage has not been ruled out since failures usually occur in the medium and low voltage networks, which are the ones that reach homes. On Wednesday, two high voltage lines failed twice on the same day. High voltage lines go from the generation companies to the distributing substations. The first failure occurred when people were sleeping, so power consumption was not high.

In addition, Edesur, the company responsible for the high voltage lines, fears the situation could worsen with the upcoming heatwave, and sources in the field speak of “complicated days” ahead since temperatures are expected to go up by Friday.

“Our technicians made a ground and aerial survey of the affected lines this morning and at noon, in order to start an investigation to determine the causes of the failures,” Edesur said in a statement.

Cammesa, the public-private company that distributes electricity, said on its website that Wednesday's events were “under investigation.”

Besides sabotage, the other hypothesis is failure due to high consumption, extreme temperatures, and a weakened electrical system after years of neglect. Supporting this possibility is the fact that there have been no days of extreme heat so far this summer. However, large numbers of porteños were not at home in either January or February, but now that they have all returned from their vacations, given the start of the school year, demand has naturally increased.

“In view of the high temperatures expected for this Thursday and Friday, the number of crews on public roads has been reinforced, and special operations are being carried out for the care of the electro-dependent, as well as the mobilization of large generators,” Edesur also mentioned.

For the 2026 summer, Cammesa does not rule out the possibility of adding generating ships from Turkey.