2019 Argentina, Paraguay And Uruguay Blackout
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The 2019 Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay blackout was a massive
power outage A power outage, also called a blackout, a power failure, a power blackout, a power loss, a power cut, or a power out is the complete loss of the electrical power network supply to an end user. There are many causes of power failures in an el ...
that struck most of
Argentina Argentina, officially the Argentine Republic, is a country in the southern half of South America. It covers an area of , making it the List of South American countries by area, second-largest country in South America after Brazil, the fourt ...
, all of
Uruguay Uruguay, officially the Oriental Republic of Uruguay, is a country in South America. It shares borders with Argentina to its west and southwest and Brazil to its north and northeast, while bordering the Río de la Plata to the south and the A ...
, and parts of
Paraguay Paraguay, officially the Republic of Paraguay, is a landlocked country in South America. It is bordered by Argentina to the Argentina–Paraguay border, south and southwest, Brazil to the Brazil–Paraguay border, east and northeast, and Boli ...
on 16 June 2019, leaving an estimated 48 million people without electrical supply. By the following day it was confirmed that power had been restored to most of Argentina and Uruguay, and Argentine President
Mauricio Macri Mauricio Macri (; born 8 February 1959) is an Argentine businessman and politician who served as President of Argentina from 2015 to 2019. He has been the leader of the Republican Proposal (PRO) party since its founding in 2005. He previously ...
promised a full investigation. The blackout is believed to have been caused by an operational misbehavior from Transener, a
transmission lines In electrical engineering, a transmission line is a specialized cable or other structure designed to conduct electromagnetic waves in a contained manner. The term applies when the conductors are long enough that the wave nature of the transmis ...
operator in Argentina. A 500 kV line running from Colonia Elía to Campana, crossing the Paraná Guazú river, was down on undergoing
maintenance The technical meaning of maintenance involves functional checks, servicing, repairing or replacing of necessary devices, equipment, machinery, building infrastructure and supporting utilities in industrial, business, and residential installa ...
to repair the
tower A tower is a tall Nonbuilding structure, structure, taller than it is wide, often by a significant factor. Towers are distinguished from guyed mast, masts by their lack of guy-wires and are therefore, along with tall buildings, self-supporting ...
number 412, whose base had been suffering from
erosion Erosion is the action of surface processes (such as Surface runoff, water flow or wind) that removes soil, Rock (geology), rock, or dissolved material from one location on the Earth's crust#Crust, Earth's crust and then sediment transport, tran ...
by the river. The company created a bypass using a nearby overhead line but failed to update the Automatic Generation Shutdown system (in Spanish: DAG), which alerts energy generators to network changes requiring a reduction in energy generation. This caused, after a
short circuit A short circuit (sometimes abbreviated to short or s/c) is an electrical circuit that allows a current to travel along an unintended path with no or very low electrical impedance. This results in an excessive current flowing through the circuit ...
which lowered demand, an excess of power generation in the grid, a lack of
synchronization Synchronization is the coordination of events to operate a system in unison. For example, the Conductor (music), conductor of an orchestra keeps the orchestra synchronized or ''in time''. Systems that operate with all parts in synchrony are sa ...
of power plants, loss of balance, and a low
frequency Frequency is the number of occurrences of a repeating event per unit of time. Frequency is an important parameter used in science and engineering to specify the rate of oscillatory and vibratory phenomena, such as mechanical vibrations, audio ...
in the network. In about 30 seconds, a succession of automatic disconnections from the grid caused a blackout that came to affect 50 million users in the continent.


Timeline

At 7:07 a.m. (UTC-3) on June 16, 2019, Argentina’s power grid suffered a sudden and widespread failure, which Energy Secretary Gustavo Lopetegui described as a “collapse.” The disruption originated in the
Argentine Interconnection System The Argentine Interconnection System (Spanish: ''Sistema Argentino de Interconexión'', SADI) is a wide area synchronous grid that links the regional networks of all Argentinian provinces, with the exception of Tierra del Fuego Province, Argenti ...
, triggering a massive blackout that left an estimated 48 million people without power. The outage affected nearly all of Argentina—excluding Tierra del Fuego in the far south—as well as neighboring Uruguay and parts of Paraguay. Although some media reports suggested that the blackout extended to areas in Chile and southern Brazil, these claims were later denied by Chilean and Brazilian national authorities. President Mauricio Macri called the event “unprecedented.” The Argentine electricity distributor Edesur announced via Twitter at 7:50 a.m. that the entire power supply for Argentina and Uruguay had been disrupted. The blackout caused significant disruptions in subway and train services but did not impact airborne transport, including electric-powered aircraft. Restoration efforts began quickly, and by 10 a.m., some areas in Buenos Aires had regained power, although Edesur warned that full restoration could take several hours. By 1:30 p.m., 75% of Uruguay had power restored. 2As the afternoon progressed, electricity returned to 50,000 people in Argentina, including those in coastal cities and metropolitan areas of Uruguay, as confirmed by Uruguay’s state-owned power company, UTE. By evening, 98% of Argentina had its power supply reinstated. By June 17, nearly all affected regions in Argentina and Uruguay had power restored. In response, President Macri pledged to launch an investigation into the cause of the blackout. Argentine media later reported that the outage was linked to a transmission failure originating from the Yacyretá hydroelectric dam.


Impact

Distribution of drinking water was affected by the loss of power, with Agua y Saneamientos Argentinos, one of Argentina's largest water supply companies, urging people affected to reduce their water consumption. The blackout had an impact on local gubernatorial elections taking place in Argentina, where the lack of power forced voters to fill out ballots in the dark, using their
mobile phones A mobile phone or cell phone is a portable telephone that allows users to make and receive calls over a radio frequency link while moving within a designated telephone service area, unlike fixed-location phones ( landline phones). This radio ...
as flashlights. In some regions of the country, the elections were postponed by authorities. Medical patients who were dependent upon home equipment were urged to attend local
hospitals A hospital is a healthcare institution providing patient treatment with specialized health science and auxiliary healthcare staff and medical equipment. The best-known type of hospital is the general hospital, which typically has an emergency ...
, where similar devices were still operational, as they were powered by backup generators. The one and only town within Argentina which did not suffer much trouble was Ticino, at the Córdoba Province. It has a
bioenergy Bioenergy is a type of renewable energy that is derived from plants and animal waste. The Biomass (energy), biomass that is used as input materials consists of recently living (but now dead) organisms, mainly plants. Thus, Fossil fuel, fossil fu ...
power plant, fueled by peanut shells, a
organic waste Biodegradable waste includes any organic matter in waste which can be broken down into carbon dioxide, water, methane, compost, humus, and simple organic molecules by micro-organisms and other living things by composting, aerobic digestion, ana ...
product for the local
peanut The peanut (''Arachis hypogaea''), also known as the groundnut, goober (US), goober pea, pindar (US) or monkey nut (UK), is a legume crop grown mainly for its edible seeds. It is widely grown in the tropics and subtropics by small and large ...
industry.


Investigation

Investigations into the cause of the outage are being undertaken by both Edesur and the Argentine government. An independent energy expert in Argentina attributed a role in the blackout to "systemic operational and design errors" in the country's energy infrastructure. Argentine Energy Secretary Gustavo Lopetegui said it was unlikely to have been caused by a
cyberattack A cyberattack (or cyber attack) occurs when there is an unauthorized action against computer infrastructure that compromises the confidentiality, integrity, or availability of its content. The rising dependence on increasingly complex and inte ...
. Preliminary reports suggested that the blackout likely originated from a fault in a 500 kV circuit from the municipality of Colonia Elía to Belgrano, a suburb of Buenos Aires. A second 500 kV circuit from Colonia Elía to Mercedes subsequently tripped under automatic action; the cause of that trip is still under investigation. A third 500 kV line from Colonia Elía to Nueva Campana was out of service at the time owing to construction work.


Aftermath

The ''Ente Nacional Regulador de la Electricidad'' will apply fines to the wholesaler energy distributor Transener. According to regulations, the maximum fine can be either 10% of the annual earnings or 50% of the monthly ones; Transener earned $9,838.5 million in 2018. Distributors Edenor and Edesur turned off 38% of the service, which harmed the situation as it was required a 52% to compensate the outage. Cammesa, the institution that regulates those distributors, explained that this was an automatic process, and that this failure was a consequence of badly programmed systems. Cammesa would redirect the money of the fees to the users, who would get a tax credit as compensation. Those credits would be of a uniform amount, unrelated to the actual time each user was without energy.


See also

*
2019 Venezuelan blackouts Nationwide recurring electrical blackouts in Venezuela began in March 2019. Experts and state-run Corpoelec (Corporación Eléctrica Nacional) sources attribute the electricity shortages to lack of maintenance and to a lack of technical expert ...
*
Manhattan blackout of July 2019 The West Side (Manhattan), West Side of Manhattan in New York City experienced a power failure on July 13, 2019, at approximately 7 p.m. EDT. Con Edison is the energy utility serving the area, and they reported that approximately 73,000 customer ...
* List of major power outages


References

{{Mauricio Macri Blackout, Paraguay and Uruguay Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay blackout Blackout, Argentina and Uruguay Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay blackout Blackout, Argentina, Paraguay Electric power in Argentina Electric power in Paraguay Electric power in Uruguay Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay blackout Power outages in South America