
All Of Argentina, Uruguay Without Electricity After Massive Outage - ToFab123
https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/massive-power-outage-hits-argentina-uruguay-power-companies-2054203
======
rafaelm
We just went through a couple of outages in Venezuela. The first one was 5
days, the second one 3 days.

After day 2 you start getting worried because everything failed, including the
water service (they've been badly maintained and they don't generate their own
power) and cell phone service. Lots of already scarce food was lost because
people had no way to refrigerate it. At least it made for some nice
neighborhood cookouts were everyone cooked and shared their food in the
street.

Getting in touch with my parents in another city was like sending messages in
a bottle. I sent an SMS, once a day they moved to one of the few places where
there was still cell phone service and replied.

Since the main issue that caused the huge outages hasn't been resolved yet, we
still get daily power rationing. I'm sitting here in the dark typing, 4 hours
so far without power.

Hope the situation in Argentina gets resolved quickly!

~~~
soyyo
It's very sad that while you are going through all this, in other parts of the
world where the situation is far better, the only interest in Venezuela seems
to be how they can use it to support their political claims.

For instance in Spain, leftist people refuse to acknowledge how bad the
situation is because they link Chavez and Maduro with their ideas and somehow
think that it would show weakness in their ideology, specially for some
politicians that openly praised Chavez.

On the other side, right wing people want the situation to be as bad as
possible so they can use it as a proof of how harmful the left is for a
country.

So Venezuela will pop up again and again in political discussions, but the
important issue seems to be "my ideology is betters than yours", not helping
the people.

I really hope it gets better for you.

~~~
ralusek
In the United States it's the same, but the left don't even take it as an
example of socialist failures. Instead they attribute the state of Venezuela
to having been the consequence of American interventionism. It's actually a
tragedy, because the lessons to be learned from the failure of socialism come
at the cost of countless lives, the least we could do is come away with
something of utility.

~~~
fit2rule
Alas, your argument is tragic because with just a simple switch of a phrase,
it becomes even more truthful:

>It's actually a tragedy, because the lessons to be learned from the failure
of western imperialism come at the cost of countless lives, the least we could
do is come away with something of utility.

We in the West all too often ignore the victims of Americas heinous illegal
wars - over 500,000 innocent people have lost their lives because America
believes it has a right to interfere in sovereign states across the globe.

Whether you are left- or right- oriented, you will be doing yourself and your
culture a favour by stopping the very poor habit of ignoring the real victims
of America's wars, who have too long been swept under the covers, because its
either too embarrassing or the inherent evils too obvious upon inspection.

Americans of all political persuasions really need to stop America's war
machine. It is, undeniably, the most negative influence in the world today.

~~~
ralusek
I oppose all American interventionism. I think it's horrible. That being said,
it's not the reason why the Venezuelan state failed.

~~~
fit2rule
Venezuela would be in a much better condition today if the CIA was not
interfering in its internal politics. There can be absolutely no doubt about
this - the evidence is absolutely clear to those who care to look.

To discount the negative effect that CIA interference in the normal operation
of sovereign states has on the world, one has to be willing to fall for a hell
of a lot of propaganda and lies. The CIA is one of the most evil organisations
on the planet today.

------
niftich
CAMMESA administers the Argentinian electricity market, and they have data on
demand [1] and grid flows. Compare the graph of flows on the 500 kV lines from
2019-06-16T07:00 local [2] to one hour later at 08:00 local [3]. For
reference, see the prior day too, at 2019-06-15T08:00 local [4].

[1]
[http://portalweb.cammesa.com/Pages/ADemandas.aspx](http://portalweb.cammesa.com/Pages/ADemandas.aspx)
[2]
[http://www.cammesa.com/uflujpot.nsf/FlujoW?OpenAgent&Flujo%2...](http://www.cammesa.com/uflujpot.nsf/FlujoW?OpenAgent&Flujo%20Geografico&15/06/2019%2007:00)
[3]
[http://www.cammesa.com/uflujpot.nsf/FlujoW?OpenAgent&Flujo%2...](http://www.cammesa.com/uflujpot.nsf/FlujoW?OpenAgent&Flujo%20Geografico&15/06/2019%2008:00)
[4]
[http://www.cammesa.com/uflujpot.nsf/FlujoW?OpenAgent&Flujo%2...](http://www.cammesa.com/uflujpot.nsf/FlujoW?OpenAgent&Flujo%20Geografico&16/06/2019%2008:00)

~~~
hfkajshfaks
I don't understand why BsAs temperature would drop just because the e got
knocked off, or why it ceases to be an analog function after the cut :S

~~~
cesarb
My guess would be that it's an average of several temperature sensors, and
that a sensor going offline registers as zero. So when the sensors come back
online, there's a sudden jump in the calculated average temperature.

~~~
dep_b
The power drops so often that Argentina would be quite a bit warmer than
officially registered here if it were true.

------
kasperni
Argentina is world’s eighth largest country. I find it mind blowing that you
can have a power outage that covers the whole country (+ some more).

~~~
hfkajshfaks
It isn't really though. A cascading failure can knock out an entire grid. The
Northeast blackout is an example.

    
    
      A line goes out. 
      while (there some lines are still live):
        The current redistributes itself among neighboring lines.
        Neighboring lines trip
      end
      BlackStart()
    

BlackStart() is fun. Having your plants and grid down is like having a dead
battery (plants use ~30% of the electricity they gen on themselves) and no one
to give you a jump.

Usually the hydroelectric plants are started first. Arg. is lucky, they have a
lot of those. Otherwise you need to fire up diesel generators (which hopefully
have been maintained).

You give power to the grid first so you can start another plant.

Then you feed hospitals and continue firing the thermal plants.

Throughout all of this you have to keep phase stability (no grid, no phase
reference). I'd assume this would limit renewable's use-fullness for re-start
(a thousand 5Mw turbines out of phase are best left idling)

As a last step you turn on your nuclear plants (Arg. has a few). These are
last because of nuclear poisons that accumulate from decaying wastes that
weren't burned while the reactor was off.

It's a bloody hard problem.

~~~
apthnz
What do you do for a living, and how can I learn more about it? This stuff
fascinates me and you've explained it really well.

~~~
6thaccount2
The user is probably a transmission level grid operator. These exist at most
decent sized utilities (Entergy, AEP, Duke), although it is possible there is
a TOP (transmission operator company) that is not the same as the utility.

There are also organizations like the RTO/ISO that also act like air traffic
controllers for the grid by keeping it reliable. They also are usually
responsible for committing and dispatching generation for dozens of utilities
collectively to save money (by banding together, you need to carry less
reserves or backup power and can leverage economies of scale). In North
America these organizations are (CAISO, SPP, ERCOT, MISO, PJM, NYISO, and ISO-
NE). All of these organizations practice black-start drills (I used to help
run them) and have NERC certified operators.

~~~
hfkajshfaks
"The user is probably a transmission level grid operator. "

Close. My dad's a power engineer, specifically grid protection.

~~~
6thaccount2
If he's doing grid protection he's probably in distribution engineering and
they would be pretty involved with a black start drill from as in they or the
line crews with their boots on the ground as not all of that procedure can be
initiated remotely I'd imagine.

The transmission level engineers and operators will call the shots as far as
how the high level stuff goes down. In other words they'll issue a directive
to get unit x online and then close in breaker b and clear a path to unit y
while picking up load at z. The actual process from the end of the people
doing that work is likely to be significantly more detailed.

~~~
hfkajshfaks
"If he's doing grid protection he's probably in distribution engineering and
they would be pretty involved with a black start drill from as in they or the
line crews with their boots on the ground as not all of that procedure can be
initiated remotely I'd imagine."

And has a nosy son ;)

------
mromanuk
I was going to post this. Thanks. Looks like Uruguay, Paraguay, south of
Brazil, Bolivia are also affected. Several million people. It’s raining, no
internet, this will be a long Sunday. Also today is father’s day, will be a
celebration with candles like in XIX :)

~~~
cesarb
> south of Brazil

That sounded strange to me, since Brazil imports power from Uruguay and
Argentina through somewhat small DC links, and if only them failing is enough
to cause a blackout in Brazil, something was probably not configured
correctly. So I went looking, and according to
[https://g1.globo.com/mundo/noticia/2019/06/16/apagao-
deixa-m...](https://g1.globo.com/mundo/noticia/2019/06/16/apagao-deixa-
milhoes-sem-energia-na-argentina-e-no-uruguai.ghtml) "deixou sem energia toda
a Argentina, Uruguai, Paraguai e sul do Brasil", so Paraguay was also
affected. Paraguay shares the huge Itaipu dam with Brazil, and a large amount
of power in Brazil comes from the Itaipu dam, so if Paraguay was affected,
Brazil (mostly the south and southwest) will probably also be affected.

edit: the realtime graphs at [http://www.ons.org.br/pt/paginas/energia-
agora/carga-e-gerac...](http://www.ons.org.br/pt/paginas/energia-agora/carga-
e-geracao) show a loss of around 1.3 GW of hydroelectric generation in the
south region starting around 7:00 and ending around 10:00, matching the timing
of the blackout.

~~~
paulvs
According to Paraguayan news [1] (Spanish), the failure was on the Argentina
side of the Yacyretá hydroelectric (which is shared by Argentina and
Paraguay), not at the plant itself. Only a few Paraguayan towns close to the
hydroelectric itself were affected, while Argentina and countries it resells
electricity to were out of power.

~~~
davps
I can confirm, at Paraguay, only two small towns (Pilar y Ayolas) where
affected and for a short period of time. Source: I live at Paraguay.

~~~
paulvs
Nice to see Paraguay present here on HN, I live here in Asunción.

I also heard of some people near Luque without power Sunday and Monday, but
I'd guess it was an unrelated ANDE incident.

------
Scoundreller
How resilient has the cellular phone network been in this outage?

How resilient is the municipal water system in an outage like this?

Do most people in Argentina and Uruguay cook with (piped/tank) gas or electric
ranges?

~~~
kragen
I haven't tracked the cellphone network status continuously, but here in
Buenos Aires, I had a VoIP call from 8:30 to 9:00 which worked fine. Until it
didn't, at about 9:00, but that's par for the course with fucking Movistar. I
was using cellphone data because the power was out in the house. I didn't
realize it was out in the entire country.

Here in Argentina, municipal water is totally reliable (I've never heard of a
water service loss due to a power outage), but the pressure in the pipes is so
low that every individual house has a pump to raise the water into a rooftop
tank. These pumps are invariably electric and powered from either the grid or,
on the frequent occasions that doesn't work, a generator. Municipal water
typically has service losses a few times a year, but not due to blackouts.

Gas stoves are far more common in Argentina than electric stoves, although my
apartment has an electric stove, which has a short which electrifies the
stainless-steel surface of the stove when it's turned on. Most people in and
near the capital run their gas stoves and on-demand hot-water heaters from
public-utility natural gas, supplied by local monopolies (state-owned in some
cases). Propane cylinders are common in less-populated areas and in houses
where the gas piping has been disconnected from the public utility, usually
due to billing disputes or safety concerns.

Over the last few years, the utilities have been sandbagging gas reconnections
after disconnections due to safety concerns, often allowing them to leave
unprofitable customers disconnected for years at a time once someone has
called in a gas leak, while they wait for the government price controls (which
have fallen far behind our absurd levels of inflation) to be loosened, making
those customers' business profitable again. This has been a significant reason
for new installations of electrical cooking and hot-water-heating appliances.
A court recently ruled against this practice, and so gas reconnections have
been sped up lately.

Uruguay has much less use of natural gas, for regulatory reasons: gas
appliances can only be installed indoors if the room in which they are
installed has a window to the outside that cannot be closed, thus removing the
risk of explosions in the case of a gas leak. Consequently in Uruguay gas
stoves are almost unheard of, and nearly all cooking is electric. Many hot-
water heaters in Uruguay are still the gas-powered tankless type that is
nearly universal in Argentina, though. They're just installed outdoors.

(Actually, I'm not sure if the above information about Uruguay applies outside
of Montevideo.)

I hope this information is interesting to you!

~~~
L_Rahman
Not OP, but deeply interesting to me and especially so as I travel around
South America.

I am completely fascinated by the home infrastructure choices in different
parts of the world. I'm currently in Sao Paulo and the hot water setup is a
little scary. There's no hot water reserve or hot water plumbing at all.

The only hot water source is in the shower. It's heated electrically in real
time by a 5000W appliance that sits just above the shower head. The only way
to change water temperature is by turning a knob on the appliance. In homes
with bad grounding, this results in shocks often enough that my hosts have
shown me Brazilian memes about it.

~~~
kragen
Yeah, electric showers are common in much of Latin America. In theory you
could build them to be safe, but often they aren't. I showered with a tank-
based electric shower today: you fill the tank, plug it in until it's hot,
unplug it, step underneath, and open the valve. This arrangement has less risk
of electrical shock, but it's far less convenient. Because the power was out,
I filled it with hot water from the tankless gas heater, but it was able to
cool enough in the process that it was more like a lukewarm shower than a hot
one.

~~~
ClassyJacket
Many of the showers in Scotland are electric too, but they look much more
modern and safe than the Asian and South American ones I've seen on the
internet.

~~~
madaxe_again
The difference is that in Scotland and Europe, it’s just one or two insulated
heating elements that the water flows past. There are numerous safeties,
overheat protectors, usually an RCD - in short, you’d be very unlucky to get a
shock.

In South America, I’ve seen two types. One: an element, but it’s uninsulated
and has no safety features. This is usually operated by a water pressure
switch and operates by heating a thin resistive element up. High danger of
faults to earth (you’re earth).

The other kind has me rather gobsmacked - the water is the element. The idea
is to just pump in enough juice that the water starts to flash boil, and forms
a plasma channel that then heats the surrounding water. Ostensibly safe, if
earthed, but I really disliked the 60hz skin tingle - later discovered that
they’d hooked earth up to the third phase in that house, when I plugged my
laptop in. Metal case, leg, funky chicken. I guess the shower is reliant on
skin effect to not kill you.

There’s a really great YouTuber who is forever tearing domestic appliances
apart - it’s actually quite amazing how some stuff is built, both in a good
way and a bad way.

Links to showers:

[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ZwuhFLsowRc](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ZwuhFLsowRc)

[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=cNjA0aee07k](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=cNjA0aee07k)

------
dredmorbius
David E Nye's _When the Lights Went Out_ traces the history and impacts of
blackouts within the U.S.

[https://www.worldcat.org/title/when-the-lights-went-out-a-
hi...](https://www.worldcat.org/title/when-the-lights-went-out-a-history-of-
blackouts-in-america/oclc/842500035)

------
cwperkins
Reminds me of the outage that hit the Northeast U.S. in the early 2000s.

------
thekingofh
Does it have something to do with the Copa America that's currently going on
right now? Maybe more people inside watching the games and using up power.

~~~
hfkajshfaks
It's winter in Argentina now, so they don't have AC loads. TVs are small by
comparison (Although it's fascinating to see how load changes during large
games: you can spot commercials, for example!)

~~~
floatrock
In the UK, this phenomenon is called the TV Pickup:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TV_pickup](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TV_pickup)

Basically a commercial break comes on, everyone turns on their tea kettle and
flushes their toilets, and bam: 200-400 MW spike in demand.

There's some blogs out there charting this during big world cup games.

~~~
kabwj
>There is a common misconception that the number one driver of TV pickup is
the boiling of kettles. In fact, this only creates a pull on the local network
for a short period of time until the water has boiled, and can therefore be
managed relatively easily, whereas flushing the toilet causes a longer surge
at the water and sewerage pumping stations, and opening the refrigerator lets
the chilled air escape, causing the compressor to run. These loads are more of
a problem for the grid.

~~~
agumonkey
dry toilets and solar concentrator kettles, yesterday

~~~
llukas
Or battery to handle short spike in demand (backed with gas turbine if risk of
prolonged spikes).

------
alganet
There was a coronal hole open these days, any chance this is related to sun
activity?

~~~
olivermarks
seems unlikely given the very low sun spot activity in our current minimum

~~~
lgats
[https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/communities/electric-power-
communi...](https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/communities/electric-power-community-
dashboard)

------
bestCauliflower
Might it have something to do with this?
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20190025](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20190025)

I just find the timing amusing to be honest. If both Russia and the US are
vulnerable to cyber attacks on the power grid, there is no doubt in my mind
that Argentina is much more vulnerable.

------
pauljurczak
Power grid hacking exercise?

~~~
stebann
Maybe. Maybe not. Forensics are on it now.

------
EGreg
I really take no pleasure in saying this

THE PROBLEM IS CENTRALIZATION!!!!

In this case, of the electric grids. In USA there are a few huge transformers
that can be knocked out with an EMP, carrington event or otherwise, and plunge
the USA into a similar situation.

We need to decentralize:

Electric grids (solar, etc.)

Cellphone towers and ISPs (mesh networks)

Social software and collaboration (open source software platforms to replace
Facebook and Google)

I am a big believer in this, and I have led Qbix to reinvest nearly a million
dollars of our company’s revenues to build towards this future:

[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=pZ1O_gmPneI](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=pZ1O_gmPneI)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WzMm7-j7yIY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WzMm7-j7yIY)

[https://qbix.com/blog](https://qbix.com/blog)

Happy to answer any questions / comments / threats :)

~~~
cryptonector
Decentralizing would mean more frequent local power outages as you cannot meet
demand with local generation.

Decentralizing would force lower efficiency on power generation.

~~~
EGreg
Decentralization doesn't mean you can't have a market for energy, and
interconnections.

~~~
cryptonector
For an electric grid it kinda does.

~~~
EGreg
Why is that?

Multiple sources of energy generation and the option to participate in
voluntary exchanges.

