Our director of Grupo Energía e Infraestructura, Federico Rodríguez, talked to LexLatin about the massive power outage that affected Chile.
This Tuesday (February 25) Chile was left in the dark: the country was involved in a mega power outage that lasted from Arica to Los Lagos and lasted for more than 8 hours.
Businesses closed early, offices were inoperative, classes were suspended, the Metro was evacuated, bus lines stretched for several kilometers and going home became a real Odyssey, especially in the metropolitan region of Santiago. That same night, President Gabriel Boric announced a night curfew until 6 am.
“This outrages us. It is not tolerable that, because of the responsibility of one or several companies, the daily lives of millions of people are affected. We are going to make sure that those responsible for this emergency have to answer to the institutions”, said the President, blaming the private company ISA.
As 99% of the population was left without electricity, Boric also decreed a state of emergency by catastrophe: it is the largest blackout recorded in the country in the last 15 years.
What is known about the blackout in Chile?
So far, it is known that the nationwide power outage was caused by a fault in the Nueva Maitencillo-Nueva Pan de Azúcar 2x500kV power transmission line, located between Vallenar and Coquimbo.
“This incident caused the disconnection of both circuits of the Cardones-Polpaico 2×500 kV transmission line, subsequently generating a massive outage in the National Electric System”, said transmission company ISA InterChile.
Diego Pardow, Minister of Energy, explained that although several attempts were made to restart the system during the day, the results had not been positive. “The protocols and emergency mechanisms were not working”, he said.
For Federico Rodríguez, director of Energy and Infrastructure at az | albagli zaliasnik, the blackout has revealed one of the weak aspects of the Chilean electricity system.
“The obvious aspect was in transmission, but the one responsible for the initial failure was operational 45 minutes after the failure. However, power was not flowing. The operation of the system is guided, among others, by security and continuity of service, which in a system like ours has ended up being more vulnerable. Today we have fewer thermal and hydraulic power plants with greater availability over time, since they have been replaced by solar power plants that are concentrated in the north of Chile, despite the fact that most of the population lives in the center-south”, he explains.
According to the expert, the keys are to avoid dumping, i.e., generated energy that cannot be injected into the system; to accelerate investments in short and long-term storage, up to 8 hours and more than 14 hours, respectively; and to improve the transmission system.
“The installation of short-term battery systems is on the way, it brings greater security of supply and has the capacity to dispatch energy produced by solar power plants during the day, to the night consumption hours. However, as we are moving away from the operation of thermal power plants (gas, coal and diesel), we need long-term storage plants that provide energy with greater independence from the energy of the sun or the wind, which is essentially stationary”, he says.
Rodríguez believes that the electricity system, being unified from Arica to Puerto Montt, needs a more robust transmission system.
“This takes more time, regulatory stability and a permitting system with greater predictability in the outcome. To achieve this, we need a proactive political system and determined private action. The only way to move towards a more electric and sustainable country is with negotiation, collaboration and working together”, he shares.
A warning that nobody heeded
The problems in the Nueva Maitencillo-Nueva Pan de Azúcar power transmission line are not new.
Already in July last year, the National Electric Coordinator (CEN) had warned that the congestion previously observed in the 2×500 kV Nueva Pan de Azúcar-Polpaico section was being transferred to the 2×500 kV Nueva Maitencillo-Nueva Pan de Azúcar section. This is where the failure was triggered this week.
From the time of the outage, CEN has 15 working days to prepare a study on the fault.
